OKLAHOMA CITY – An appellate court recently affirmed a jurist’s revocation of a previously suspended 20-year prison sentence for a southwest Oklahoma woman who has admitted guilt in seven felony crimes in four counties over the past 15 years.
Stephanie Elaine Ballou appealed the revocation of a suspended sentence she received in Jackson County after pleading guilty Dec. 20, 2017, to distribution of a controlled dangerous substance. She received a 20-year prison sentence, but all of it was suspended except for the first year and 154 days.
A year later the state filed an application to revoke the suspension because of multiple violations, including Ballou’s failure to report to the probation office and failure to spend a required nine-month term in a sober living facility.
On Oct. 2, 2019, Jackson County Associate District Judge Clark E. Huey revoked Ballou’s suspended sentence in full.
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals noted Ballou’s “repeated failure to comply with the terms and conditions of probation” and her arrests for “subsequent criminal offenses” as proof that Huey’s decision “cannot be considered an abuse of discretion.”
Ballou, 35, who at various times has listed home addresses in Granite and in Frederick, has a record of four drug convictions, two for firearms possession, and one for false personation.
She was arrested by the Hobart Police Department in 2005 and was charged with two counts of possession of narcotics and one count of possession of drug paraphernalia. She pleaded guilty in 2006 and received a five-year prison sentence with all but six months suspended.
In June 2013 Ballou was arrested by the Kiowa County Sheriff’s Department and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol for possession of narcotics, possession of drug paraphernalia, and driving while her license was suspended or revoked. After pleading guilty in January 2015, she received an eight-year suspended sentence and was fined $300.
On July 24, 2015, Ballou was charged in Oklahoma County with possession of methamphetamine and possession of a firearm. She pleaded guilty on July 19, 2016, and received two concurrent five-year suspended prison sentences.
That same day was when she was charged in Jackson County with distribution of a controlled dangerous substance.
In April 2018 Ballou was arrested in Greer County for driving while her license was suspended or revoked. In December 2018 she was arrested in Tillman County for concealing stolen property, in January 2019 she was charged in Tillman County with being in possession of a firearm after a former felony conviction, and in March 2019 she was charged in Kiowa County with false personation.
In February 2020 Ballou was sentenced in Kiowa County to three years in prison, concurrent with the Jackson County drug peddling case. Also in February 2020 she pleaded guilty to the Greer County misdemeanor traffic count and was sentenced to a year in the county jail, fined $300, and was assessed more than $840 in court costs, fine and fees.
A month later Ballou pleaded guilty to the Tillman County gun possession charge and was sentenced to five years in prison, concurrent with the Jackson County and Greer County sentences. The misdemeanor stolen property charge was dismissed.
Ballou was confined in the Oklahoma City Community Correctional Center as of June 18, according to the state Department of Corrections.