LEGAL PAIR FACE MORE CHARGES

Meth Possession, Subornation Of Perjury Allegations Leveled By Grand Jury

WAGONER - Indictments unsealed here Tuesday charge district attorney
office administrator Vyrl Keeter with two counts of attempted
subordination of perjury.

Another indictment unsealed charges Janet Bickel, a former assistant
district attorney in Muskogee County and then for District Attorney
Richard Gray, with providing false evidence and possession of a
controlled drug.

Both had been charged with perjury in indictments unsealed Friday in
Oklahoma County District Court for alleged lying to the multicounty grand jury.

Gray, district attorney in Adair, Cherokee, Sequoyah and Wagoner
counties, issued a statement Tuesday saying Keeter had been placed on
administrative leave "effective immediately."

Gray wrote that the "situation will be addressed by those individuals
affected and their respective counsel. I respect the purpose of the
multicounty grand jury and remain confident in justice."

Keeter, 74, and Bickel, 49, both pleaded not guilty Tuesday and
notified the court they want preliminary hearings on the charges.

Prosecution evidence is presented at such a hearing and defense
evidence is presented before a judge decides if there is sufficient
evidence to order the defendant to trial.

Keeter was charged with one count out of Wagoner County and one out
of Cherokee County. The Cherokee County indictment was unsealed in
Wagoner County for convenience and by agreement.

Bickel is charged with being present in her capacity as an assistant
district attorney in February 2005 when District 27 Drug Task Force
executed a search warrant on a Tahlequah residence. A baggie of
methamphetamine at the scene later turned up missing.

The indictment states Bickel left the scene before an inventory of
the evidence was taken. A baggie of what is believed to have been
enough methamphetamine for personal use came up missing.

Everyone who had left the scene before the inventory was contacted
about the missing drug. Bickel denied any knowledge of the
whereabouts of the evidence at that time.

About five days after the search warrant was executed, Bickel
allegedly notified Gray she located the missing baggie in her purse.
Gray ordered Bickel to bring the baggie to his office in Wagoner
County. She is charged with possession of a controlled drug in the
handling of that baggie. Other law enforcement contend the baggie
Bickel turned in was not the same one missing from the search site.

Attorney hints at Bickel's defense

Prosecutors make enemies in connection with doing their job, and part
of those enemies are in law enforcement, drug task force officers,
"because you don't like some of the things they do - like taking
shortcuts, not getting search warrants or maybe threatening people,"
said Bickel's defense attorney, Donn Baker.

"I've thought all along that the drugs were placed in her purse. She
contacted the DA herself and took the baggie of drugs over there
(Wagoner County) herself," Baker said.

"My position is going to be they were planted."

Bickel was charged with perjury in earlier testimony before the
multicounty grand jury in an indictment unsealed Monday in Oklahoma
County. She contends she is not guilty of perjury.

Keeter, also charged with perjury in an indictment unsealed Monday in
Oklahoma County, now faces charges in Wagoner and Cherokee counties
for attempting to subordinate perjury in each of those counties.

He allegedly told a person in Cherokee County whom he expected to be
a witness before the grand jury "to testify that you can't remember"
while knowing the party he was offering advice did have knowledge of
events he believed to be under investigation.

The indictment alleges Keeter offered that when he earlier testified
before a grand jury that he simply testified he did not know or could
not recall when he had knowledge of the events under investigation.

The Wagoner County charge alleges Keeter advised a potential grand
jury witness to testify falsely by saying "static electricity" caused
items to stick together and "that is why the evidence was taken from
the scene of a search warrant conducted in Cherokee County on Feb. 22, 2005."

A $1,000 bond was set on each charge. Bickel and Keeter posted bond.
Outside judges to hear matters

Wagoner County District Judge Bruce Sewell said "out of an abundance
of caution" he asked judges outside the 15th Judicial District to
handle any further hearings in the matters stemming from the grand
jury indictments.

Sewell said he contacted the presiding judge of the administrative
district, District Judge Joe Sam Vassar, who has assigned Associate
District Judge Michael Claver of Okmulgee County to preside over the
preliminary hearings and District Judge Larry Parish, who presides
over cases in Okfuskee, Okmulgee and Creek counties, to preside over
the jury trials.