Your Thursday Oklahoma

Courtesy of Esquire's Charles P. Pierce with Help from Yours Truly

Big damn thanks, as always, to good friend Charles P. Pierce of Esquire for the shoutout and for reminding us, if such reminders were necessary, you can run but you can’t hide.

Check that — actually, you can.

And we conclude, as is our custom, in the great state of Oklahoma, whence Blog Official Bunkhouse Varmint Whisperer Friedman of the Plains brings us the tale of a man on the lam. From NonDoc:

University police interviewed Hampton, who said he had taken the money to help a female friend in need. But by the time embezzlement and computer fraud charges were filed in March 2020, Hampton — who is also the ex-husband of current Eastern Oklahoma State College President Janet Wansick — had disappeared. More than two years later, police have not located him, and questions still linger about the situation’s fiscal impact on the Ada-based regional university.

ECU hired the accounting firm Crawford & Associates to conduct a financial audit (embedded below) regarding Hampton’s actions. Completed in February 2020, the report found a total of about $98,765 was still missing from the university, far beyond the approximately $222,878 that Hampton initially returned. That put the amount initially stolen by Hampton at about $320,843.

Hampton is still at large. I’m not sure if the authorities quite have a handle on this yet.

A spokesman for the U.S. Marshal Service in the Eastern District of Oklahoma said local law enforcement had not requested federal assistance in apprehending Hampton, although he said the case likely would not meet such a threshold. “It has to meet certain criteria, and I’m not aware of embezzlement reaching that criteria,” said Deputy Marshall Jeff Johnston. “There’d have to be some federal nexus there. It would have to be millions of dollars, and they would have to be traveling internationally.”

So, since it’s too piddling a crime for the Feds to be interested—no millions, no trips to Bimini chasing “hot leads”—how are the local LEOs handling the investigation?

“It is just a matter of time. If he gets pulled over for a speeding ticket and they run his name, they will arrest him,” said ECU police officer Glen Jones, who worked on Hampton’s case. “Say if he’s in New Hampshire, for example, if he gets pulled over and they run his name, he’ll have a warrant and they will pick him up and he’ll be extradited back to Oklahoma.”

If he’s in New Hampshire, I’ve lost all respect for him.

This is your democracy, America. Cherish it.

*Friedman of the Plains, LLC: “Before you can speak to varmints, you must first love them. (Since 2014)

*A Charles P. Pierce Family Company (SFX: Ding)