Former State Sen. Ron Sharp has been awarded $600,000 as a settlement in a suit with Epic Charter Schools.
Sharp, during a recent interview since the award was announced, commented, “Epic did a very good job of destroying my integrity and reputation. This is a vindication,” he added, noting, “I will get a check very soon and the current Epic Board President Paul Campbell publicly apologized to me.”
He said Campbell apologized for what Sharp had gone through.
“Epic Founders Ben Harris, David Chaney and Josh Brock are currently charged with embezzlement,” Sharp said.
“I knew something was wrong with Epic from the beginning. Former Gov. Mary Fallin had initiated an investigation with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation in 2013.
“Epic was claiming they had an enrollment of 30,000 students. During the Pandemic they were claiming 60,000 students.
The former state senator further related, “We stopped testing kids in 2019 due to the Pandemic. I went to the OSBI in 2018,” Sharp said. “But the OSBI didn’t understand school finance,” he believes, “so I created a timeline and prepared a document for the OSBI and turned that over to them.”
Sharp explained he had to prove who was turning in the number of students, so the State Department of Education (SDE) finally provided him with the documentation, but it wasn’t that easy.
“I had fits getting that from the SDE. It was determined that David Chaney, one of the Epic founders, was the one,” Sharp said.
Chaney, along with cofounder Harris and former Chief Financial Officer Josh Brock were arrested by the OSBI in late June and each is facing multiple felony charges.
OSBI Director Ricky Adams said at the time of their arrest, “Harris, Chaney and Brock came up with a get rich quick scheme that lined their pockets with tax dollars that were to be spent for the benefit of Oklahoma students.
“The OSBI criminal investigation unraveled the intricate scheme layer by layer, in spite of lack of cooperation, legal obstacles and delay tactics.”
Sharp pointed out, “I gave the timeline and the prepared document to the State Auditor Cindy Byrd in 2020.” He said he thinks the OSBI “really kicked its investigation into high gear when the State Auditor turned that information over to them.”
He said the OSBI turned their findings over to the State Attorney General’s Office. Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater asked for the investigation and the documents from the AG’s Office and they were turned over to Prater who is the one who filed the charges in June.
“It was the state auditor who was able to obtain bank records of Epic Charter Schools that showed tax dollars were used to fund political campaigns and dark money against me and others,” Sharp said.
Sharp said in December 2019, Epic Charter Schools sued him for libel and slander because of his being publicly critical of the charter schools.
He stated that two months later, in February 2020, Oklahoma County District Judge, Cindy Truong tossed out the lawsuit and later fined Epic $500,000 for filing a meritless lawsuit.
He said in August of 2020 his attorney filed an Anti-SLAPP suit which is a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation brought by individuals and entities to dissuade their critics from continuing to produce negative publicity.
He noted by definition the SLAPP suits do not have true legal claims against the critics.
“The judge fined them (Epic) $500,000 and $36,000 in attorney fees. The $500,000 has been accruing 8 percent interest since August of 2020 until July of this year,” Sharp added.
He termed it a “Compensatory settlement.”
Sharp said it was a different Oklahoma County District Court Judge Brent Dishman that signed off on the settlement last week.
Epic filed an appeal with the State Supreme Court in September of 2020, Sharp said and the court never heard it. “In March of 2022 Epic dropped the lawsuit and they had to seek State Supreme Court approval to dismiss the lawsuit, Sharp said.
“By March of 2022, every single Epic school board member that was part of that had resigned.”