Run, Don't Walk, To Get Your Sunday Oklahoman

"How $441K grant aided Stipe," the headline on investigative reporter Tony Thornton's Page One story in The Sunday Oklahoman reads, but the story is much more than that if you have any idea of former State Senator Gene Stipe's influence and connections over the years to certain southeastern Oklahoma officials. Thornton also recalls (it was first reported in The Oklahoman in the 1970s) Stipe's business connections to a Tahlequah real estate agent who "joined him in a business venture a year after his acquittal" in a 1968 federal income tax evasion case in which the real estate agent "served on the federal grand jury that indicted Stipe...." Stipe was acquited and a year later, Thornton reports, the agent and Stipe began doing business together. Thornton also reports that some of those involved with Stipe in the $441,000 grant land deal "also helped Stipe obtain state and local tax money for land to be sold for a McAlester dog food plant in 2002." That deal is a part of the ongoing federal investigation into the business dealings of Stipe and others. The Oklahoman's website is http://www.newsok.com/.

Share |