Four of the candidates who hope to fill out the remainder of former Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz's term face candidacy challenges, and one is confronting questions about his past.
Thirteen candidates have filed paperwork to run for sheriff. The Tulsa World reports that four candidates - John Fitzpatrick, Arthur Jackson, Henry Jones and Erich Richter - have come under scrutiny. Sheriff candidate Jason Jackson filed paperwork to contest the peace officer certification of Fitzpatrick, Arthur Jackson and Jones. The Tulsa County Election Board will address these questions at a hearing on Thursday morning at 9:00 a.m.
The Tulsa World reports other questions are surfacing about Erich Richter. Corey Jones writes:
Tulsa Jail records archived by the World show Richter was arrested twice in 2012. He was arrested in June that year on suspicion of false pretense over $500 or con game, and then again in December in connection with larceny from a house.
Richter responded by saying both cases were expunged from his record. He told the Tulsa World, "Just because somebody’s charged doesn’t mean somebody’s guilty." The Associated Press reports that candidate Tom Helm is contesting Richter's eligibility because he switched his party affiliate from Republican to Democrat on September 15, and then switched his affiliation back to Republican on October 6. According to state law, a candidate must be affiliated with a party for six months prior to filing.
According to Open Records requests filed by the Tulsa World, one candidate - Bill Reaves - was fired from his position as a lieutenant at the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office in 1990, where he worked at the jail. He was fired by Stanley Glanz. No reason was given for his dismissal.
Reaves told The Frontier that he was fired for no reason, and that he is running primarily "to see what they did to my jail."
The Frontier's Dylan Goforth writes that more candidates have filed to run for sheriff in the upcoming election than have filed in the previous 27 years combined. The general election is scheduled for April 5, 2016, and the term runs through December 31, 2016. Another election will be held in November 2016.
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