EUFAULA — A former sheriff and undersheriff pleaded guilty Monday to embezzlement by an officer and conspiracy after a judge refused to accept their plea agreements.

“I won’t follow it (plea agreement),” McIntosh County Associate District Judge Jim Pratt told former McIntosh County Sheriff Terry Alan Jones and former Undersheriff Mykol Travis Brookshire.

“If you want a jury trial, I’m ready to give it to you,” Pratt said.

Jones, 36, and Brookshire, 38, conferred with their attorneys before returning to the courtroom and pleading guilty.

Both admitted to splitting $5,000 taken from a motorist during a traffic stop.

Each received 10 years on each count. Jones is to spend seven years in prison and three years probation on the embezzlement, with Brookshire to receive six years in prison and four years probation.

Each received seven years in prison and three years probation for the conspiracy. The terms are to run concurrently with their federal sentences.

Their federal sentences involved 27 months in prison to be followed by supervised probation. They pleaded to pocketing cash they took in a traffic stop.

“I do not feel 27 months is adequate for being the judge and the jury on the side of the road,” Pratt told Jones and Brookshire. “Motorists were helpless — faced with a guy with a badge, flashing lights and a gun. You were using your authority to commit these crimes.”

Pratt told the men that it is his signature that goes on the state judgment.

Pratt said he was the only person not consulted with whether the plea negotiated with the federal government was acceptable to him.

Brookshire’s attorney, Warren Gotcher of McAlester, told Pratt no judge is brought into the plea process.

“I’m not going to put my name on an agreement that carries the agreement of the federal court,” Pratt said.

Pratt told the defendants he’d read the presentence investigation report and all pleadings.

“All I have seen is extraordinarily troubling,” Pratt said. “Both of you took an oath to defend the laws of the state of Oklahoma. I gave you your oath Mr. Jones.”

He told them they didn’t vow to honor just some of the laws.

Pratt said he doesn’t know who promoted the conspiracy.

“But at no point was anybody saying you’re under arrest (to the other) — which is what you were supposed to be doing.”

Instead, each was equally culpable, Pratt told them.

He said there are good people in the sheriff’s office who faced bankruptcy and foreclosure and didn’t seize money — “just you guys did.”

Pratt said Jones said during his presentence investigation that his undersheriff did it, and Brookshire said he took the money under the direct supervision of Jones.

“Get this behind you — get it corrected — and get on with your life,” Pratt said.

Jones and Brookshire have 10 days to seek to withdraw their guilty pleas.







Reach Donna Hales at 684-2923 or dhales@ muskogeephoenix.com.