State Auditor and Inspector Cindy Byrd has confirmed she will conduct a special investigative audit looking into the finances of District Attorney Allan Grubb’s office.
Byrd said on Monday of this week, “District Attorney David Prater sent my office an official request to conduct a forensic audit of the District Attorney’s office in District 23. The audit will include all financial accounts of the district,” she added.
Byrd said the audit will begin next week.
Prater is Oklahoma County District Attorney and a permanent member of the District Attorney’s Council, as is Cleveland County DA Greg Mashburn. The DAC is the administrator for the district attorneys’ offices across the state.
Grubb, who is district attorney for Lincoln and Pottawatomie Counties, said this week he was told last week by an agent with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation that he is not under investigation.
“The only OSBI investigation I know of is the one I requested back in October of the Child Advocacy Center and they haven’t turned over a report to me yet,” Grubb said.
However, sources have said Grubb is being investigated by the OSBI. One indicated the OSBI has set up an interview for as early as later this week.
Grubb apparently has come under fire for his use of deferred prosecution agreements, known as DPA’s, to help shore up finances in his office.
A deferred prosecution agreement is where a prosecutor offers a deal to a subject for a fee and no criminal charge is filed, there is no guilty plea, no going before a judge and no jail time.
The DA doesn’t believe the OSBI can investigate him over the DPA’s. “It’s not a crime, so how can they investigate,” Grubb asked.
Asked how many deferred prosecution agreements his office has done since he took office in January of 2019, Grubb replied, “I don’t know how many DPA’s my office has done because my Assistant DA’s do them. I’ve done two personally,” he stated.
Asked how much money the DPA’s have raised for his office, Grubb responded, “I have no idea how much they’ve raised since I took office.”
Grubb claims the agreements are used mostly with misdemeanor crimes, and many of them have to do with property crimes. He stated that with the DPA’s restitution is made up front to the victim and through the court system that usually comes towards the last.
Grubb contends the OSBI cannot see those deferred prosecution agreements, that they are sealed.
When asked about Grubb’s claim that the secret deals are sealed and others can’t have access to them, Byrd replied, “I have no comment.”
However, two sources with many years of judiciary experience and Pottawatomie County Sheriff Mike Booth disagree with the DA.
One source said, “There is zero truth to that claim. A deferred prosecution agreement is a public record. They’re an open record,” he added.
The other source agreed, saying, “They are public record. He’s wrong,” the source said in refuting the DA’s claim.
“I don’t know of any agreement where you can keep money from the public. It’s being spent to run the office. It’s taken in by a public entity and spent by a public entity and therefore the public has a right to know about it.”
That source also pointed out, “They’ll (OSBI agents) be looking into everything. That money can’t be used to shore up any shortfalls, they can’t use that money to pay the District Attorney’s Council.”
Sheriff Booth indicated as well that the DPA’s are public record. He and Grubb are at odds over the DPA’s and a Community Service program that he says was forced to shut down due to the deferred prosecution agreements. That program had been in existence for many years.
Booth was asked if OSBI agents had contacted him about meeting with them and he answered, “No, but I hope they come talk to me and my command staff.”
Grubb claims the Community Service Program was a victim of COVID-19, not the DPAs.
Booth says with Community Service no one gets any money. “The Court doesn’t charge them,” he noted.
“The DA can get money with a DPA but not the Community Service,” Booth added.
He said those in the Community Service mowed cemeteries, picked up trash, helped out at Senior Centers and performed other work.
The sheriff said his office coordinated and supervised the program.
Booth said while his office has seen some money from seizures, he criticized Grubb for not sharing the money. “One of my deputies seized money in a traffic stop, and we never got a penny from it.
“I’ve asked where’s our money and we haven’t been given any recently from the seizures. We’re supposed to be splitting it a third for the DA’s office, a third for the sheriff’s office and a third for the jail,” Booth noted.
Grubb claims the dispute with the District Attorney’s Council is due to his support of State Question 805 and his support of Kris Steele who was heavily involved in seeking passage of the ballot measure which was defeated.
“I was the only one of 27 district attorneys who supported SQ 805 and criminal justice reform,” he said.
The DAC reportedly says Grubb’s office is nearly $300,000 behind in payments. Grubb pointed to figures saying his office “has paid $638,742,82 and next week they will have received $725,270.37.”
The District Attorneys around the state each month are to transfer money into the DAC account and then the DAC writes checks back to the district attorney offices.