Wagoner County commissioners agreed to an out-ofcourt settlement of a civil rights lawsuit against Sheriff Chris Elliott over the death of a Type 1 diabetic woman in the county jail. The cost: $13.5 million.
The Association of County Commissioners of Oklahoma Self-Insured Group paid $483,156, leaving county taxpayers on the hook for $13,016,843, which will have to be paid off with a sales tax or with higher – much higher – property taxes.
Wagoner County voters will make their decision on Feb. 11, 2025. That day they will vote on a proposed one-fourth of 1 percent county sales tax that would go into effect July 1, 2025, and would be levied for 15 years, “or until the debt has been satisfied in full, whichever occurs sooner.”
Reportedly the county will borrow the money from a bank and repay the loan with proceeds from the sales tax if the voters approve the proposal Feb. 11.
But if voters reject the sales tax, the federal court judgment will be paid off with a property tax increase that would be imposed for 10 years.
According to the Wagoner County Assessor’s Office, if the answer is Door No. 2 the ad valorem tax bill inYear 1 on a $200,000 home would be $40.77 per month. In Year 2 the ad valorem tax bill would decline by $1.15, to $39.62 per month. In Years 3 through 10 the tax rate would vary, depending on how much principal and interest were paid down.
The lawsuit settlement provides that the post-judgment interest rate, starting Jan. 1, 2025, will be 4.96% for the first three years and increase to 6% annually for the next seven years.
Wagoner County levies a sales tax of 0.013% (1.3 cents per dollar), which produced $855,469 in November and $1,009,998 in December. In addition, Wagoner County communities of Wagoner, Coweta, Okay, Porter, and Tullahassee all levy city sales taxes of 0.04% (4 cents per dollar), and the state sales tax is 0.045% (4.5 cents per dollar).
The debt will be paid in 10 “equal annual installments plus post-judgment interest compounded annually” on “the first day of January each year,” the settlement provides.
None of the three county commissioners could be reached for comment Friday because their offices closed at 3:30 p.m. that day.
A mediator presided over a session between the plaintiff, Sharon Dee Dalton, and the defendant, Sheriff Chris Elliott, on May 24, 2024, and a settlement conference in the lawsuit was held Aug. 16, 2024, court records reflect.
A resolution approving “the primary terms” of the $13.5 million lawsuit settlement agreement was approved unanimously by County Commissioners James Hanning, Chris Edwards and Tim Kelley at their Sept. 23 meeting, according to minutes of that session posted on the county’s website.
During their Nov. 18 meeting all three Wagoner County commissioners approved a Journal Entry of Judgment confirming the agreement, and the document was filed in Muskogee’s Eastern District federal court the next day, two weeks after the Nov. 5 general election.
In the Aug. 27 runoff primary, Chris Elliott narrowly won reelection to a third term, edging former deputy Tyler Cooper by 35 votes: 4,327-4,292. Wagoner was the only town in the county that didn’t support Elliott in the race, according to Rachael Butler, a hairstylist who lives outside ofWagoner.
The county commissioners, at their Dec. 2 meeting, approved a resolution calling for the Feb. 11 election on the sales tax proposal to pay off the lawsuit debt. Butler told Southwest Ledger she owns residential and agricultural property that would be affected by a property tax increase if the sales tax proposal fails. Family fights over fortune in Tulsa Co.
In a document filed in Tulsa County District Court on May 17, 2022, Sharon Dalton, mother of Angela Lynn Liggans, claimed that when her daughter died in theWagoner County Jail she was intestate; was not married; and had one surviving child, Mitchell Blake Mathews, address unknown. About six weeks later the court appointed Dalton “personal representative” of her daughter’s estate.
On Oct. 17, after word of the settlement got out, Helen Alice Burnett and Robert Vaughn Burnett petitioned the Eastern District federal court for permission to intervene as “co-guardians” for “Mitchell Blake Liggens (cq), the sole natural child of Angela Liggans.”
The Burnetts said they were appointed guardians of the boy, who is now 17, inWashington County (Oklahoma) District Court earlier in the year in order to “assert the appropriate action to obtain and secure assets” of the teenager in which he “may be an interested party.”
U.S. District Judge Gerald L.
Jackson denied the Burnetts’ request to intervene on Nov. 18.
And on Dec. 23, Michael McCoy petitioned the Tulsa County District Court to revoke its “award letter of administration” to Sharon Dalton and to “amend determination of heirs.”
“As was well known” to Dalton, Liggans “was, in fact, married to Michael Mc-Coy in accordance with the Oklahoma law of common law marriage,” he claimed. In addition, McCoy identified Liggans’ teenaged son as Mitchell Blake Mathews.
District Judge Kurt Glassco, in the Probate Division of Tulsa County’s district court, scheduled a hearing for Feb. 20 on McCoy’s petition to revoke Dalton’s letter of administration and amend the determination of heirs.