Oklahoma’s Department of Corrections (DOC) fired Lexington Assessment and Reception Center (LARC) Deputy Warden Tasha Parker on May 9, 2024, one day before her arrest for smuggling contraband into the prison. Within a month, two of four guards accused of setting up a prisoner’s assault pleaded no contest to the charge.

After Parker’s roommate overdosed at the deputy warden’s state-owned residence on LARC property, investigators uncovered a smuggling operation that Parker allegedly ran. They also confiscated a trove of contraband, including tobacco, drug paraphernalia, methamphetamine, scales, cell phones and even a drug ledger with prices and the names of customers.

Adding to Parker’s legal woes, investigators found an undeclared semiautomatic handgun and two loaded pistol magazines in unsecured plastic garbage bags on the residence’s porch—an area accessible to prisoners working in maintenance and grounds upkeep. The security lapse allowed easy transfer of smuggled items to prisoners.

Emily Barnes, a prison advocate who is executive director of Hooked on Justice, lobbied Oklahoma lawmakers on April 29, 2024, for more funding to crack down on drug use and overdose deaths in state prisons. She expressed outrage over Parker’s alleged mismanagement of LARC. “Here’s a deputy warden who’s supposed to make sure none of this stuff is coming in our prison, and you’re the one bringing it in,” she said, calling the charges “very disturbing.”

DOC has a dedicated unit to combat contraband smuggling, but the LARC incident proves how hard that is when high-ranking officials are involved. Advocates like Barnes argue for harsher penalties for those in positions of authority who violate the law, like Parker. The disgraced deputy warden faces one count of introduction of contraband into a penal institution, and she was freed on $10,000 bond.

Prisoner’s Assault Set Up By Guards

Just a month before Parker was fired and arrested, former LARC guard Matthew Sinnett pleaded no contest in April 2024 to a misdemeanor charge of conspiracy to commit assault, for directing a group of prisoners to attack another prisoner—twice—early in 2023. Fellow guard Eric Cramer entered the same plea to the same charge on June 3, 2024. Two other guards, Sgt. Cody Cross and Sean Skarecky, still face the same charge for their roles in setting up assaults of prisoner David Coker, 42, by fellow prisoners on February 10 and 11, 2023.

All four guards were accused of egging on other prisoners in a holding cell with Coker, while he was being processed into LARC to begin a 15-year sentence for first-degree rape. A guard alleged that Coker had sexually assaulted his niece and reportedly told the other prisoners to “handle it,” returning to thank them after they attacked and injured Coker—who was also not medically evaluated. Instead he was left waiting on a bench for several hours where another group of prisoners attacked him again early the next day. DOC investigators later determined that guards again were too slow to respond with a medical evaluation.

DOC did not discipline Skarecky, but Cross was suspended for 10 days. The agency fired Sinnett and Cramer in June 2023. After entering their pleas, Sinnett got a 45-day suspended sentence and a $100 fine, plus 10 hours of community service, while Cramer received a year of probation that deferred adjudication of his charges until June 2, 2025.

With the aid of Oklahoma City attorney Shelby Shelton, Coker filed a negligence suit against the four guards in state court in February 2024. He also filed a separate suit pro se in federal court for the Western District of Oklahoma, accusing the four and DOC officials of violating his civil rights. Both cases remain pending, and PLN will update developments as they are available. See: Coker v. Cross, Okla. Jud. Dist. 21 (Cleveland Cty.), Case No. CJ-2024-186; and Coker v. Stitt, USDC (W.D. Okla.), Case No. 5:24-cv-00547.  

Additional sources: KGOU, KFOR, Oklahoma Watch

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