Oklahoma judge overseeing charter school embezzlement case rejects calls for recusal

Nuria Martinez-Keel, Oklahoma Voice
August 16, 2024

Defense attorney Gary Wood attends a preliminary hearing for his client, Epic Charter School co-founder David Chaney, on May 7 at the Oklahoma County Courthouse. Wood has disputed a request that he be disqualified from the Epic case. (Photo by Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoma Voice)


OKLAHOMA CITY — A judge presiding over the major embezzlement case against the co-founders of Epic Charter School faces a call to recuse, with a defense attorney accusing her of being an “advocate for the prosecution.”

District Judge Susan Stallings denied the request for her disqualification during a hearing Thursday at the Oklahoma County Courthouse. Both she and prosecutors from the Attorney General’s Office disagreed with the defense’s argument that she is unable to be impartial.

“The court finds there were a lot of assumptions made but no facts,” Stallings said.

Defense attorney Joe White, who filed the motion, said he intends to appeal Stallings’ decision. First, the matter would come before the chief judge in Oklahoma County, a responsibility the district judges share on a rotating basis. Then, if rejected again, White could raise it to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals.

It’s not uncommon for a judge to receive a request to recuse, but most are resolved in private. Far fewer disqualifications are ever disputed in a public hearing.

White said Stallings should be disqualified because of her work history at the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office, which investigated Epic and filed charges against the school’s co-founders.

Stallings is a former Oklahoma County prosecutor who led the DA’s Domestic Violence Unit.

“You may well have been a participant at least in hearing information about the Epic case,” White told the judge during the hearing. “There is reasonable evidence, reasonable reasons that I question your impartiality. What matters not is the reality of bias but its appearance.”

Stallings said she had no knowledge of the Epic investigation until the charges were filed years after she left the DA’s office.

The DA’s office charged Epic’s co-founders, Ben Harris and David Chaney, in 2022 with racketeering and a litany of financial crimes, accusing the defendants of creating a complex scheme to enrich themselves with millions of public education funds. Harris and Chaney deny ever misusing taxpayer dollars.

The Attorney General’s Office has since taken over prosecution of the case.

Epic’s former chief financial officer, Josh Brock, faces many of the same charges as Harris and Chaney. He has since agreed to testify against the co-founders in exchange for a plea deal that would guarantee him no prison time.

Although more than two years have passed, multiple delays have kept the court proceedings in their early stages.

A weeklong preliminary hearing in March laid out the evidence against Harris and Chaney, but a week wasn’t enough to get through all the witness testimony.

Special judge Jason Glidewell handled the preliminary hearing. He would decide whether prosecutors have established enough probable cause for the case to continue to trial with Stallings, who is Glidewell’s superior.

The preliminary hearing was set to resume in May, but it was stalled again by a motion to disqualify Chaney’s attorney, Gary Wood. Brock’s attorneys said Wood used to represent their client and therefore should be barred from cross-examining him.

Wood denies ever representing Brock.

In an unexpected turn of events, Stallings decided to handle Wood’s disqualification hearing herself, rather than the special judge overseeing the preliminary hearing.

White, who represents Harris, said Stallings’ work history came to light during meetings leading up to Wood’s hearing. He said she should have disclosed the information sooner.

The attempt to force Stallings off the case adds another delay to an already stalled case. It remains unclear when the preliminary hearing will resume or when the request for Wood’s disqualification will be resolved.

White complained Stallings can’t remain unbiased in Wood’s disqualification hearing when her old boss, former Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater, could be called as a witness.

Prater’s former first assistant, Jimmy Harmon, said there is “zero” basis to remove Stallings and called White’s complaints an attempt at “judge shopping.”

Now the head of the attorney general’s criminal division, Harmon said any information about the Epic investigation stayed between himself and the DA. He said Stallings wouldn’t have known any details because team leaders didn’t talk in front of each other about ongoing, sensitive investigations.

“That’s not the way Mr. Prater ran his office,” Harmon said during Thursday’s court hearing.

White also contended that Harmon revealed details of confidential negotiations between Prater and Wood — information that he says now spoils the judge’s ability to be impartial. The information was disclosed in a witness list Harmon filed for the hearing on Wood’s disqualification.

The witness list states Prater would testify that Wood attempted to negotiate a settlement agreement on behalf of Harris, Chaney and Brock. The settlement, which never ended up happening, would involve the defendants paying “a significant sum up-front in restitution” in exchange for no criminal charges being filed, the witness document states.

The fact that Stallings is now aware of this information is disqualifying and “reeks of bias,” White said.

Prater declined to comment on Stallings’ and Wood’s disqualification proceedings.

“I believe it’s appropriate for any information about the Epic case to come out at future hearings in open court,” he told Oklahoma Voice.

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