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By SUSAN HYLTON
World Staff Writer
MUSKOGEE — Former state Rep. Mike Mass of Hartshorne was at the federal courthouse in Muskogee the same day a grand jury was in session Wednesday, but he said he was not there to testify.
Mass, who is embroiled in an FBI investigation involving former longtime state Sen. Gene Stipe, visited the local office of the Oklahoma attorney general two days after he was subpoenaed to testify in a civil trial involving Stipe and Stipe’s former business partner, Steve Phipps.
The investigation concerns an alleged straw donor scheme in which people who contributed to several Democratic campaigns — including that of U.S. Rep Dan Boren — were reimbursed by companies controlled by Stipe and Phipps. Boren has claimed no knowledge of the scheme. Read more…
From Tulsa Today: (excerpt)
Gary Jones, a Republican who narrowly lost two elections to Democrat State Auditor Jeff McMahan in 2002 and 2006, told Tulsa Today that it was the trail of campaign contributions from Gene Stipe, Steve Phipps and their employees to McMahan’s 2002 campaign that led to the discovery of the scheme to funnel millions in tax dollars to Stipe, Phipps, and former Democrat State Reps. Mass, Erwin and Hefner.
State Auditor & Inspector Jeff McMahanAfter losing the 2002 election, Jones said he had suspected a Stipe-McMahan connection since 2003, after reading the list of straw donors to Walt Robert’s 1998 campaign. “What really threw up a red flag was the article in the Oklahoman in 2004 about the now-famous National Pet Products, the dog food factory in McAlester. The article listed Gene Stipe, Stipe’s brother Francis, his partner Steve Phipps, along with Karen Carper and Roy Hattridge. What else did these people have in common? They were all major contributors to Jeff McMahan’s campaign,” Jones told Tulsa Today.
While Jones was serving as Chairman of the Oklahoma Republican Party, he said people sent him information claiming meetings were being held in the State Auditor’s basement conference room involving Reps. Mike Mass and Randall Erwin, and Stipe’s partner, Steve Phipps.
“Supposedly, the topic of discussion was how they could all benefit from the expanded gambling laws, and one person told me that Mass was heard bragging that if they got this through, they would never have to work another day in their lives,” Jones said.
“The Internet is an amazing tool,” Jones said. “It allows you to do research and find things in minutes that might take years to do manually – or go undiscovered otherwise. I did a Google search of Steve Phipps, and the first thing that popped up was a press release from the Oklahoma House of Representatives about a newly formed organization called the Rural Development Foundation being awarded a water permit for 25 billion gallons of water from Lake Eufaula – and Steve Phipps was listed as their consultant. Searching further on the Oklahoma Secretary of State’s Web site for Rural Development, it revealed that RDF office was located in Antler’s – at the same address as an abstract company owned by Gene Stipe and Steve Phipps.”
Jones shared that information with an Oklahoma state representative, whose further research found that RDF had received a $350,000 line item appropriation in the Department of Commerce’s funding bill. He called back later to say that they received another $350,000 as a line item in the appropriation bill for the Department of Agriculture.
Jones said his continued Internet searches led him to a Web site called
http://www.followthemoney.org/, where he discovered that the board members of RDF had also contributed to McMahan’s campaign. When Jones entered their names into a Google search, it brought up the Oklahoma State auditor’s Web site and listing employees of all the abstract companies in Oklahoma by county. McMahan’s office regulates all Oklahoma abstract companies. Stipe and Phipps’s biggest venture together are numerous jointly owned abstract companies.
This latest search by Tulsa Today shows that several board members of RDF were also employees of abstract companies owned by Stipe and Phipps, and that dozen of other Stipe and Phipps employees were also McMahan contributors. Read more…
Click here to view contributions to McMahan from Stipe, Phipps, and employees.
We admit we’re not big fans of today’s reality shows. To us, they poignantly illustrate the void of creativity currently in the entertainment industry. But there is one show that has our attention every week. That show is the NBC Dateline series “To Catch a Predator”.
It has our interest, not because of the luridness of grown men having sexually charged online chats with underage girls and sometime underage boys. Or the sick perverts often driving several hours and hundreds of miles to the teenage decoy’s home to engage in their disgusting fantasies.
No. It is the fascination that with all the publicity the show has garnered over the months, there are still people who will risk everything; reputation, marriages, careers, and freedom to still attempt to break the law. There once was an episode of a pervert being busted twice in the same show! Our fascination is similar to the almost magnetic attraction human beings have with watching fist fights or traffic accidents. This brings us to former state Senator Gene Stipe
The FBI says Stipe continued to illegally fund political campaigns EVEN AFTER HE WAS CONVICTED OF DOING THE SAME THING!
The Oklahoman reports today that an unsealed affidavit says Stipe gave over $34,000 dollars to Congressman Dan Boren’s 2004 primary campaign by reimbursing friends and associates for their contributions. Boren says he wasn’t aware of the scheme.
The March 2004 contributions were made two months after Stipe was sentenced to house arrest and fined more than $735,000 dollars for a similar scheme in a 1998 congressional campaign.
We admit we’re not big fans of today’s reality shows. To us, they poignantly illustrate the void of creativity currently in the entertainment industry. But there is one show that has our attention every week. That show is the NBC Dateline series “To Catch a Predator”.
It has our interest, not because of the luridness of grown men having sexually charged online chats with underage girls and sometime underage boys. Or the sick perverts often driving several hours and hundreds of miles to the teenage decoy’s home to engage in their disgusting fantasies.
No. It is the fascination that with all the publicity the show has garnered over the months, there are still people who will risk everything; reputation, marriages, careers, and freedom to still attempt to break the law. There once was an episode of a pervert being busted twice in the same show! Our fascination is similar to the almost magnetic attraction human beings have with watching fist fights or traffic accidents. This brings us to former state Senator Gene Stipe
The FBI says Stipe continued to illegally fund political campaigns EVEN AFTER HE WAS CONVICTED OF DOING THE SAME THING!
The Oklahoman reports today that an unsealed affidavit says Stipe gave over $34,000 dollars to Congressman Dan Boren’s 2004 primary campaign by reimbursing friends and associates for their contributions. Boren says he wasn’t aware of the scheme.
The March 2004 contributions were made two months after Stipe was sentenced to house arrest and fined more than $735,000 dollars for a similar scheme in a 1998 congressional campaign.
Does Federal Probe Of Rural Development Foundation Extend To McMahan, Erwin, Mass?
SIXTH IN A SERIES ~ A federal investigation into the controversial Rural Development Foundation (RDF) in Antlers may now include questions about an alleged meeting that included RDF consultant Steve Phipps, State Auditor & Inspector Jeff McMahan, State Rep. Mike Mass and former State Rep. Randall Erwin, it has been learned.
The questions could be important because the man behind the foundation, Kiowa resident Phipps, was a partner with State Senator Gene Stipe in nine abstract companies, and McMahan licenses and regulates abstractors.
In a possible related article:
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) State Senator Kenneth Corn is calling for more prison space.
The McCarville Report Online:
FOURTH IN A SERIES ~ State Auditor & Inspector Jeff McMahan, who has life-and-death control over the certificates of authority for abstract companies to operate, has received about $149,000 in donations from 220 abstractors and abstract company employees for his 2002 and 2006 campaigns.
Abstractor support of McMahan began in his first campaign for the office in 2002, when 132 abstractors and employees in their offices donated $81,000 at critical times in McMahan’s campaign. A large part of the total came from then-abstract company partners Gene Stipe and Steve Phipps, who owned nine abstract entities doing business mostly in southeastern Oklahoma, and their associates and employees. Stipe, the Democrat former state senator forced to resign and surrender his law license after conviction on federal felony counts tied to illegal congressional campaign contributions, perjury, conspiracy and trying to obstruct a Federal Election Commission investigation, formed the companies with Phipps, of Kiowa. The two split and at last report were faced off in a legal battle instituted by Stipe last year.
Read more..