The Town of Boynton had to sell a lake to pay off a $125,000 court judgment arising from a “ruthless beating” a man sustained at Town Hall, allegedly at the hands of the mayor, the town clerk, and the town’s water system operator, a convicted felon.
The assault was attributed to the citizen’s persistent efforts to see municipal records that he was convinced would prove corruption by the mayor and her husband.
Subsequently in 2019 the mayor, the town clerk and the water system operator were charged with felony embezzlement.
And those charges were filed three years after the previous town clerk pleaded guilty to seven counts of embezzlement and forgery.
In addition, Boynton was sued for failure to pay a five-figure bill from the town’s water supplier.
“The Town of Boynton has been embroiled in fraud, waste, abuse, and financial mismanagement for several years,” former State Auditor and Inspector Gary Jones (who is now the city manager at Altus) wrote in January 2019.
“There has been evidence of embezzlement and misappropriation of funds as far back as 2009,” Jones reported in the executive summary of an investigative audit his office performed on the community, covering a 25-month period: June 1, 2014, through July 31, 2016.
“The culture of noncompliance in the Town begins with a lack of properly elected officials and culminates in the lack of records, lack of oversight, misuse of public assets, and finally a material misappropriation of funds.”
Criminal charges were filed against four former officials of the tiny Muskogee County town in just five years.
The State Auditor & Inspector’s office released a special audit of the town in February 2014 which “detailed irregularities in utility billing, unexplained compensation for a former Town employee, as well as a general lack of oversight by the Town Board during the period of Oct. 1, 2009, through June 30, 2013,” Jones reported.
Former Boynton Town Clerk Brittany Dawn Page, now 38, was named in five charges of embezzlement and two charges of second degree forgery in 2014. Two years later Page pleaded guilty; she received a deferred 20-year prison sentence but was ordered to pay $16,000 in restitution to the town plus $3,065 in court costs.
Paying in installments, Page apparently retired the debts after seven years; “case is paid,” court records posted in August 2023 show.
Troubling issues were uncovered in another examination of Boynton’s records, covering the 25-month period of June 1, 2014, through July 31, 2016, by the State Auditor and Inspector’s office.
The SA&I audit of the official books and records of Boynton – then a town of approximately 250 residents but now down to about 160, according to the 2022 federal census – was requested by former District Attorney (now Associate District Judge) Orvil Loge.
Between 2014 and 2017, the Town of Boynton “transitioned through the election or appointment of nine different trustees, three town clerks and two mayors,” Jones related in his investigative audit released on Jan. 10, 2019.
Loge’s request was the second SA&I investigation, and the third overall investigation in four years, into allegations of misappropriation involving former Boynton town employees.
At Loge’s request, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation reviewed Jones’ state audit and confirmed its findings. That resulted in multiple criminal charges filed by Loge on May 31, 2019.
Charges filed against mayor, clerk, employee Felony charges of embezzlement and forgery were filed against former Boynton Town Clerk Candace Renita Lang, 45; an embezzlement charge was filed against her stepmother, then-Mayor Clara Kay Lang, 74; and an embezzlement charge was filed against former town water system operator Willie Gary Hopkins, 65.
• Clara Lang received a total of $1,078.82 in “questionable compensation,” Jones’ audit found.
• Candace Lang was accused of misappropriating $76,657 of town funds, writing 145 checks to herself in excess of her approved payroll compensation during the 23.5 months she served as Boynton’s town clerk (Aug. 1, 2014, through July 19, 2016).
• Willie Hopkins received $37,537 in “questionable compensation, above his approved payroll compensation amount of $36,000,” Jones reported. Hopkins was a full-time employee of the Town of Boynton, “hired as a water man” but certified as a water operator for only eight of the 23 months he was employed. He was officially hired by the Board of Trustees on Aug. 25, 2014, and resigned his position on July 11, 2016.
Bank records reflect that 85 checks totaling $73,537 were issued to Hopkins during the less than two years he was employed with the town.
Of that sum, “the only board-authorized payments were his salary of $800 bimonthly, totaling $36,000,” Jones reported. The remaining checks totaled $37,537 and were issued payable to “Willie Hopkins.”
“According to Hopkins he provided services to the Town, and these additional checks, although made payable to ‘Willie Hopkins,’ were for work done through his business, Home Maintenance Plus, not as an employee,” Jones wrote. “However, there were no receipts, invoices, purchase orders, or other records provided to support the payments for the alleged work done through Home Maintenance Plus,” Jones said, adding, “We also found no evidence that any of these payments had been officially authorized” by the Board of Trustees.
Because no timesheets or time records were maintained for Hopkins, “it could not be definitively determined if the work Hopkins claimed he was paid for through his ‘personal business’ were actually duties performed during town work hours as part of his town duties,” Jones reported. Dismissal, exoneration, and one conviction The felony embezzlement charge against Clara Kay Lang was dismissed last December by Muskogee County District Attorney Larry Edwards in the “best interest of justice.” No explanation was provided in court records.
On April 11, 2024, at the conclusion of a fourday trial, a Muskogee County jury declared Willie Gary Hopkins not guilty of embezzlement.
That same day the jury convicted Candace Renita Lang on both charges against her. She was sentenced to three years in prison for embezzlement and was ordered to pay the Town of Boynton $76,657 in restitution.
Lang received a oneyear suspended prison sentence for forgery. However, she also was assessed $6,405 in fees which included a $1,000 fine, court costs of $4,411, a $150 DNA fee, a $250 fee for representation by the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System, and $594 for 11 days she spent in the Muskogee County Jail.
It was unclear from records in the Oklahoma State Courts Network whether Candace Lang and Willie Hopkins testified against each other in that trial, although it’s doubtful: they were married Oct. 4, 2021, at the Muskogee County Courthouse.
Furthermore, Hopkins was the acknowledged father of Lang’s daughter born in 2015 while he was still married to another woman.
The Oklahoma Indigent Defense System filed a petition with the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on July 8, challenging Lang’s convictions. She was incarcerated on Aug. 1 in Mabel Bassett Correctional Center at McLoud.
Town’s financial records audited only by SA&I State law provides that an examination of a municipality’s fiscal-year finances should be performed by an independent auditor and be completed by the end of that particular calendar year.
Records maintained by incumbent State Auditor and Inspector Cindy Byrd that extend back to 2008 indicate no independent performance audits have ever been performed on Boynton’s ledgers.
In fact, the only times Boynton’s books were examined by outside auditors were the investigative audits performed on the city’s financial records for Oct. 1, 2009, through June 30, 2013, and again for June 1, 2014, through July 31, 2016, when Jones was State Auditor.
The only records for Boynton on the State Auditor’s website are the town’s “estimate of needs and financial statement” for Fiscal Year 2019-20, and the town’s “sinking fund estimate of needs” for FY 2017-18, 2018-19, and 2019-20.
Several town officials appointed or elected contrary to state law Besides the criminal charges filed against Boynton’s town officials, two of those officials were appointed in violation of state law and five trustees were elected in a manner spelled out in state law, Jones noted.
Boynton’s town clerk and town treasurer are elected officials who serve four-year terms. The clerk is to be chosen at the election in which trustees from odd-numbered wards are elected, and the treasurer is to be chosen at the election in which trustees from even-numbered wards are elected.
Nevertheless, the treasurer’s position “was not filled during our audit period,” Jones related.
Kay Lang initially was appointed town clerk by the Board of Trustees on April 14, 2014; “she was not elected as required by law.” Candace Lang was appointed by the Board of Trustees, effective Aug. 1, 2014; “she also was not elected as required by law.”
Further, the Town of Boynton held a municipal election on July 22, 2014, to elect five new board members. “This meeting was held in violation” of a state statute which decrees in part, “… a biennial town meeting of the voters shall be held on the first Tuesday in April in each odd-numbered year for the purpose of electing municipal officers and considering questions raised by initiative or referendum…” The public notice of the election, as required by state law, “was also not complied with,” Jones noted. Numerous irregularities Irregularities cited in the state audit included:
• Blank checks were signed with no accompanying documentation.
• Audits were not performed annually as required by state law.
• Bank statements were not reconciled and financial reports were not presented to or reviewed by the Board of Trustees.
• Records supporting the receipt and expenditure of funds did not exist, were destroyed, or had been removed from Town Hall.
• Payroll records were missing from Town Hall.
• Official meeting agendas and minutes were not maintained and were incomplete as to actions taken by the trustees.
• Payroll taxes were not withheld from employee compensation and applicable tax returns were not submitted to each governmental taxing agency as required. Payroll, Social Security and unemployment insurance taxes were not withheld from employee payroll checks. Consequently, the proper tax returns were not filed with the State of Oklahoma nor the Internal Revenue Service.