District Attorney disputes Attorney General’s account of Guthrie human trafficking operation

Logan County District Attorney Jeremiah Gregory is challenging the Oklahoma Attorney General’s description of a recent human trafficking training operation in Guthrie, saying statements that 15 potential victims were “recovered” during the operation are misleading.

The differing accounts come after a three-day human trafficking training course involving the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Human Trafficking Response Unit, Skull Games Solutions, and officers from the Guthrie Police Department, Jones Police Department, Logan County Sheriff’s Office, and Payne County Sheriff’s Office.

Five men were arrested during the operation and have since been charged with one felony count each of engaging in or soliciting prostitution and one felony count of violating the Oklahoma Computer Crimes Act, according to the Logan County District Attorney’s Office.

The Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office issued a news release on Sept. 14 stating that five individuals were arrested and “15 potential victims” were recovered during a trafficking operation at a Guthrie hotel.

The Attorney General’s Office said the individuals recovered during the operation were offered victim services.

“We appreciate the collaboration of our law enforcement partners throughout Oklahoma to protect victims of human trafficking and to hold predators accountable to the law,” Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in the release. “Every training session and every operation bring us closer to driving human trafficking out of Oklahoma.”

Gregory, however, issued a lengthy statement disputing how the operation and its results have been characterized.

According to the district attorney, the arrests resulted from a prostitution sting conducted as part of the training. Gregory said fake online advertisements for prostitution services were posted, and the five defendants responded to the advertisements and went to a hotel room reserved by law enforcement.

Officers participating in the training were waiting at the hotel and arrested the five men when they arrived, according to Gregory.

Gregory emphasized that the five defendants are not accused of trafficking or holding the individuals described as potential victims.

“In this particular solicitation sting operation, there were no actual human victims,” Gregory said. “The only parties involved in this solicitation case were the five defendants now charged with solicitation and the law enforcement officers waiting at the hotel to arrest them.”

Gregory also addressed three individuals who had previously been described as victims recovered during the training.

According to the district attorney, three individuals engaged in prostitution were contacted during a separate training scenario and invited to discuss services that could help them leave prostitution.

Gregory said law enforcement determined the three were not direct victims of a sex trafficker and were working independently. He also said none of the three were connected to the five men arrested in the solicitation operation.

The sharpest disagreement between the two offices concerns the Attorney General’s statement that 15 potential victims were recovered.

Gregory said he confirmed with the Guthrie Police Department that the 15 potential victims referenced by the Attorney General’s Office were actually internet profiles used during the intelligence portion of the training.

According to Gregory, trainees used open-source information to identify and locate people who could potentially be victims of human trafficking. He said officers did not make in-person contact with any of those 15 individuals.

Gregory called the Attorney General’s characterization “wholly misleading” and said that stating that 15 potential victims were recovered created the impression that those individuals were physically located during the Guthrie hotel operation.

“The public has been led to believe these ‘15 potential victims’ were found at this hotel,” Gregory said. “This is patently false.”

The Attorney General’s Sept. 14 release, however, specifically states that the operation “recovered 15 potential victims” and that those recovered were offered victim services.

The conflicting descriptions follow information initially released by Skull Games Solutions after the training.

Guthrie News Page reported on Sept. 11 that Skull Games Solutions said participants had identified 15 potential victims and two suspected traffickers during the intelligence portion of the training for follow-up investigation. Skull Games also reported at the time that three victims had been recovered.

The Attorney General’s subsequent release described 15 potential victims as having been recovered, while Gregory’s statement says the 15 were identified online and never contacted in person.

The three accounts therefore differ significantly in their descriptions of the operation’s victim-related results.

What is consistent among the accounts is that five men were arrested following the training operation.

The five defendants are Carlos Rubio De Santiago, Kenneth Blevins, Victor Najera, Elwyn Patmon and Johnny Goforth.

According to the District Attorney’s Office, each has now been charged with one felony count of engaging in or soliciting prostitution and one felony count of violating the Oklahoma Computer Crimes Act.

Gregory said human trafficking remains a serious concern and that his disagreement is specifically with how the Guthrie operation has been portrayed publicly.

“Human trafficking is a very existential problem in our country, in Oklahoma, and in our own communities,” Gregory said, adding that his office will aggressively prosecute human trafficking cases within its jurisdiction.

Guthrie News Page has presented the statements from both the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office and the Logan County District Attorney’s Office because of the significant differences in their descriptions of what occurred and how many potential victims were actually contacted or recovered.

The criminal charges against the five defendants are accusations and are not findings of guilt. Each defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.