OK Prosecutors Used Seized Asset Forfeiture Funds to Pay Off Student Loans, Live Rent-Free In Seized Home

A 2009 audit of the District Attorney’s Office that represents Beaver, Cimarron, Harper and Texas counties found that a Beaver County assistant district attorney began living rent-free in a house obtained in a 2004 forfeiture. A judge had ordered the house sold at an auction, but the prosecutor lived there through 2009.

Utility bills and repairs made to the house were paid out of the district attorney’s supervision fee account, the audit states.

The audit recommended the house be sold and the supervision fee account be reimbursed.

“These conditions resulted in expenditures that were not for the enforcement of controlled dangerous substances laws, drug abuse prevention and drug abuse education,” the report stated.

The audit also found the District Attorney’s Office didn’t report the benefit as income for tax purposes.

In a 2014 audit of the DA’s office representing Washington and Nowata counties, the State Auditor’s Office found that $5,000 in forfeiture funds had been used to make payments on an assistant district attorney’s student loans.

The report said the district attorney maintained the expense was justified because most of the cases the assistant DA prosecuted were drug cases.

After the issue came to light, the Oklahoma District Attorneys Council reimbursed the $5,000 using funds from its own student-loan program, the State Auditor’s report states.