OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla., (The Oklahoma Post) –June 18, 2025
The nepotism findings and failures to recuse are just getting started. One bruised child, one offshore father, and one fateful five-minute phone call — ignored for eight years — have now exploded into a federal RICO battle that could upend Payne County’s cozy courthouse club. Two secret phone tapes, a buried abuse report, and a bloodline linking the Attorney General to the very judges he’s sworn to defend are laying bare how Oklahoma’s family-court cartel really works — from the judge’s bench straight back to the Drummond family checkbook.
This case is not about proving whether my children were abused by a neighbor or an uncle back then — it’s about the obstruction, the manipulation, and the power brokers who kept it buried. Like so many families across Oklahoma, mine collided with a court system that abuses discretion, ignores parental alienation as a form of child abuse, and dares the police to investigate nothing. The Sheriff’s Department looked away. The District Attorney — told outright by Drummond that police and judges won’t be touched — refused to prosecute. Meanwhile, in Stillwater and Payne County, even licensed mental health professionals and innocent relatives were harassed into silence, terrified to expose how deep the courthouse corruption goes.
This case doesn’t stand alone — it pulls back the curtain on a deeper network of unchecked misconduct stretching far beyond family court. District Attorney Laura Austin Thomas, who presides over Payne and Logan counties, has presided over a string of scandals so glaring that abuse has festered even inside her own office. Kevin Etherington, her First Assistant District Attorney for nearly a decade, was arrested by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation in November 2022 for aggravated possession of child pornography and computer crimes. This came after 14 cyber tips flagged illicit material in his personal Google Drive. Despite his high rank, no meaningful safeguards or oversight appear to have stopped him from occupying the second-highest prosecutorial seat in the county for years.
Etherington’s brush with the law wasn’t his first. In 2017, he faced a felony larceny charge for allegedly stealing property from his ex-wife’s home — a case dismissed as a “civil dispute,” but one that foreshadowed a pattern of legal and ethical gray zones inside the DA’s ranks. After his child exploitation arrest, the Oklahoma Bar Association moved quickly to suspend his license, and he remains under strict bond conditions as he awaits trial. Yet this is the same office that families rely on to investigate child abuse and protect victims.
The scandal doesn’t stop there. Public records show Etherington’s longtime partner, Elizabeth Beck, is a key figure at Lions Meadows of Hope — a local foster care and adoption agency in Stillwater. While no records confirm Etherington himself worked for the agency, the proximity raises disturbing questions given the nature of his pending charges. Families across the state have reported suspicious adoption proceedings connected to local mental health entities, with allegations that addiction or mental health issues were exploited to terminate parental rights. Meanwhile, whispers persist that individuals inside Grand Mental Health and related DHS services have been too cozy with local drug suppliers. One name surfaces repeatedly: Lance Magby, arrested in February 2025 for trafficking cocaine out of his Stillwater home while police allege he was selling up to an ounce every week or two for years.
These tangled threads — a top prosecutor arrested for child exploitation, a cocaine dealer connected by family ties to mental health gatekeepers, and a foster system accused of fast-tracking removals — form the backbone of what plaintiffs now describe as a racketeering enterprise hiding in plain sight. For families who lost children under questionable circumstances, and for whistleblowers silenced by threats of retaliation, these facts make one thing painfully clear: when the same small circle controls prosecution, mental health evaluation, and child placement, justice takes a back seat to protecting the circle.
Christmas 2014 — Bruise, E-Mail, No Hotline
Gregory Moyer is locked on a Gulf platform when an e-mail from his wife Mary Johnston (today Mary Stinnette) pings through the rig Wi-Fi:
“Lisa’s friend, the big one, touched Shonda’s privates … It happened at the birthday party.”
Moyer answers the only way a father 500 miles offshore can: “Call DHS, talk to Melissa, I’ll catch the first chopper home.” Melissa DeLacerda — then the family’s attorney, president-elect of the Oklahoma Bar, queen-maker on the Judicial Nominating Commission — should have speed-dialed 800-522-3511. She didn’t.
December 2015 — DHS Asks, “Where’s the Report?”
A year passes. Marley Miller, CPS Supervisor, writes Moyer:
“Have you called the hotline? If not, please do and forward the referral number.”
Translation: No mandatory report. The bruise is off the books, the alleged abuser unnamed, and Payne County law enforcement looks the other way.
3. The Clique Gets Closer — and Blood Thicker
| Player | Hidden Link | Why It Reeks |
|---|---|---|
| Gentner Drummond | Cousin to Judge Phillip Corley and to Moyer’s former attorney Ky Corley | Now Attorney General tasked with defending the very judges in question. |
| Judge Phillip Corley | Receives campaign cash from the Drummond family (discovered by Moyer only in 2024 campaign-finance dives) | Sat on custody hearings without disclosing kinship or donations. |
| Ky Corley | Cousin to Drummond & Judge Corley; briefly represented Moyer | Never flagged the family relationship, then exited stage left. |
| Melissa DeLacerda | Flips from “family lawyer” to Mary’s divorce counsel | Bar President; JNC gatekeeper; no hotline call. |
When your ex-wife’s new lawyer, your judge, and the state’s top prosecutor all share bloodlines and donor lists, Lady Justice doesn’t just peek — she winks.
March 2017 — The Two Phone-Call Promises
Tape #1 | 16 March, 3:39 p.m.
“You’re never going to see those kids again, Greg — not while I’ve got this judge on my side.”
Tape #2 | 30 March, 2:46 p.m.
“I already talked to the judge. It’s done.”
No Payne-County judge has ever ruled on these recordings; the docket simply pretended they weren’t there.
The Statutes They Skated Past
- Mandatory-Reporter Law (10A O.S. § 1-2-101): Ignore abuse, commit a crime.
- Visitation-Interference (21 O.S. § 566): Six months in jail for blocking court-ordered parenting time.
- Judicial Canons: A judge must step aside when “a cousin with campaign cash” pops up on the family tree.
- RICO (18 U.S.C. § 1962): Conspiracy + obstruction + extortion = racketeering.
Stonewall Meets Federal Concrete
It took a pandemic, a public-records marathon, and a shoe-box of old genealogy charts for Moyer to learn that Drummond is blood-kin to both Corleys — and that the Drummond clan cut checks to Judge Corley’s 2010 campaign. None of it disclosed in any Payne-County courtroom.
On Monday night, Moyer filed the 2014 bruise e-mails, the DHS “where’s the report?” note, and the two MP3s — now Exhibits 12 & 13 — in Moyer v. Murray (5:25-cv-00429-SLP). The cousin connection and donation trail sit in the RICO section of the First Amended Complaint like dynamite packed around courthouse marble.
Federal court doesn’t care about Payne County’s secret-handshake circle. A cryptographic hash talks louder than campaign dollars, and conflicts of interest don’t vanish because the family reunion photo got cropped.
If a mandated-report call can disappear, if a Bar president can flip sides, if a cousin-judge can pocket family money while presiding, and if the cousin-AG then defends the judge — what’s left of due process?
These tapes aren’t just late evidence; they’re a stethoscope on a courthouse artery clogged with nepotism. Payne County thought the stain would stay offshore with the rig mud. Turns out, federal court is one subpoena away.
Buckle up. The cousin card just got dealt face-up, and the deck is about to be reshuffled.
Those recordings — embargoed for years in a bruising Payne-County custody battle — has never been played inside an Oklahoma courtroom because of fraud on court. According to Moyer, state judges refused to hear it in chambers, or set hearings that never materialized.
A preliminary review indicates that Stinnette:
- Threatens permanent visitation cutoff.
“Not while I’ve got this judge on my side,” she says at one point. - References off-record influence.
Stinnette claims she has “already talked to [attorney name redacted]” who will “make it happen.” - Frames the denial as punishment, not protection.
Nowhere, Moyer says, does she raise safety or welfare concerns about the children.
Why that matters in Oklahoma law
Oklahoma imposes an affirmative “duty to facilitate visitation” on every custodial parent. Interference can trigger contempt, makeup time, attorneys’ fees, and even damages. 43 O.S. § 111.3(A)–(D) oksenate.gov
Willful violation of a court’s visitation order is punishable as indirect contempt — up to six months in jail under 21 O.S. § 566 law.justia.com.
At the federal level, the U.S. Supreme Court recognizes the parent-child bond as a fundamental liberty interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000) supreme.justia.com.
“So long as a parent adequately cares for his or her children, there will normally be no reason for the State to interfere.” —Justice O’Connor, Troxel.
Moyer’s complaint argues that Stinnette’s threats, combined with alleged collusion by judges and opposing counsel, amount to:
- Civil-rights violations under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (due process & equal protection).
- Predicate acts — extortion, obstruction, witness retaliation — supporting a RICO claim (18 U.S.C. § 1962).
Pattern-and-practice or isolated misconduct?
The tape lands amid wider allegations that Payne- and Pottawatomie-County courts “rig procedure to pre-empt evidence.” Earlier filings cite:
- A Feb. 7 2025 Stillwater PD refusal to take Moyer’s criminal complaint against a related witness.
- Affidavits from whistleblowers alleging off-docket coordination between defense firm Collins Zorn & Wagner and sitting judges.
- A 2022 Koch-facility “BOLO” that plaintiff says branded him a security threat without due process.
No Sanctuary for Victims — When “Helpers” Become Threats
For families who believed they’d find refuge in local nonprofit mental health providers — Wings of Hope, the Saville Center, Grand Mental Health, or Enid’s Greer Center — hope quickly curdled into despair. These facilities, designed to stabilize children and vulnerable adults, became entangled in the same courthouse corruption they were supposed to heal.
Licensed counselor Elizabeth Galbiso and others like her stand at the heart of this betrayal. Entrusted with confidential details from families in crisis, Galbiso never took the risk of reporting what she knew about local government misconduct and police failures — a duty both her license and her conscience demanded. Instead, she cites fear of retaliation while withholding the transparency her patients desperately needed. It wasn’t just cowardice; it was a violation of trust.
One name looms large in this broken ecosystem: Gentner Drummond, Oklahoma’s Attorney General. In June 2024, Drummond threw his weight behind a sweeping consent decree on mental-competency reforms, embedding tighter state control over treatment decisions. Mental health professionals warned publicly that it forced legal staff into direct clinical oversight — a move they feared would politicize care (nondoc.com). But whistleblowers say the bigger danger has always been Drummond’s quiet deals with local nonprofits: hush-hush settlements and insider pacts that kept victims trapped and families from getting honest help.
When abuse turned lethal behind closed doors, victims across Payne and Garfield counties found nowhere safe to run. The Greer Center in Enid drew headlines for allegations so shocking — patients choked, beaten, neglected — that even the local DHS and police had to investigate, albeit in true Reno 911 fashion: slapdash, secretive, and ultimately inconclusive. Despite calls for a grand jury in March 2025 (news9.com), no lasting oversight emerged, and the same managers kept their doors open for fresh patients — and fresh taxpayer money.
Look closer, and you’ll see how Drummond’s “reforms” only mask how deep the rot runs. In late 2023, The Frontier reported that a former Greer staffer blew the whistle on repeated abuse, only to be smeared with anonymous flyers around Enid and forced to file protective orders against her own co-workers. In August 2024, a nurse sued, calling Greer “hell on earth” for its vulnerable residents and accusing managers of ignoring multiple internal abuse reports. Meanwhile, the Oklahoma Department of Human Services continued placing new residents at Greer — turning a blind eye to the known dangers.
While these frontline horrors festered, Drummond held ribbon-cuttings and press conferences declaring the Pinnacle Plan — a massive foster-care overhaul born from a 2012 class-action suit — a mission accomplished. For the families still losing children to a rigged family court and secretive removal orders, that closing celebration rings hollow.
He’s also championing another grand “settlement” — a 2024 consent decree over mental-competency treatment for people in the criminal system. Critics say this new plan just deepens state entanglement and ignores the real rot: local providers so intertwined with police, prosecutors, and courthouse insiders that the same few power players control who’s labeled unstable, who’s jailed, and whose children vanish overnight.
For families caught in Moyer v. Murray and dozens of echoing cases statewide, the question remains: when the same tight circle polices itself — from the judge’s bench to the therapist’s couch — where does a parent, a child, or a whistleblower actually find safety?
A note to my readers:
Before you listen, I ask your grace and understanding. In this recording, you’ll hear me — at times sounding scattered, talking more than listening, and not always making sense. Part of that is true exhaustion and emotion; part of it is because I’d just had a seizure days before and was still not fully myself. I know I come across foolish at moments — but the truth we captured in Elizabeth’s words matters more than my stumbles. Please forgive my delivery, and focus on what this brave, hesitant witness reveals.
All individuals are presumed innocent of any wrongdoing. Allegations remain unproven until adjudicated.
Why readers should care
Visitation interference may sound like family-court minutiae. But Oklahoma law views it as a direct attack on a parent’s constitutional rights — one that can escalate into contempt, civil damages, and now federal RICO liability.
As the tape finally enters the docket, Moyer v. Murray will test whether a federal courtroom will hear what state judges allegedly would not — and whether a five-minute phone call can expose a years-long pattern of courtroom gate-keeping.
More to come. This case is just revealing itself. It’s only now being documented—for the record, and for the courts. If you have also been victimized by these actors or have information to share, we want to hear from you.
⸻
© 2025 The Oklahoma Post | By Robbie Robertson
(Writing by DJ Vance; Editing by Robbie Robertson)
Sources for verification: The Frontier (Dec 2023, Greer whistleblower reports), KOCO News (Aug 2024, Greer nurse lawsuit), Oklahoma AG official press releases (March 2025 Pinnacle Plan statements), and publicly available case filings for Moyer v. Murray (W.D. Okla. Case No. 5:25-cv-00429-SLP).
By The People’s Popular Paper | Oklahoma Special Report
2025 -The Oklahoma Post – TheOKPost.com is dedicated to delivering relevant news and information to Oklahomans, sharing their stories, pictures, and experiences. The content on this website includes contributions from various individuals and links to external public and privately owned sources. The views and opinions expressed in user-generated content are solely those of the respective authors and do not necessarily reflect The Oklahoma Post. The Oklahoma Post does not independently verify the accuracy of third-party contributions and rely upon contributors to fact-check their work. By sharing links and allowing open contributions, TheOKPost.com exercises the right to free speech and providing a platform for diverse perspectives.
