EX-OFFICER GUILTY OF FAKING RECEIPT

SHAWNEE -- A former investigator for the Pottawatomie County district
attorney's office pleaded guilty Monday to submitting a false receipt to
the state for $1,300 in drug informant funds, a prosecutor said.

Lee Edward Smith, who turned 44 Monday, entered the plea before District
Judge Paul Vassar, special prosecutor Robert Mitchell said.

Smith entered a "blind plea," meaning there is no plea agreement with
prosecutors on his punishment, Mitchell said.

The charge carries a possible punishment of not less than one year and not
more than five years in prison, Mitchell said. Smith also can never hold a
state office again, he said.

Smith will be sentenced by the judge on July 14.

Smith admitted paying an informant $1,300 in 1994 to make an undercover
drug buy, but the informant never made the purchase and returned the money,
Mitchell said.

However, Smith still submitted a receipt to the drug task force for
reimbursement of the money, the prosecutor said.

Mitchell said the money is still "unaccounted for." Smith has agreed to
cooperate and make full restitution in this case and for "other amounts to
be determined," he said.

About $6,000 in drug task force funds are missing, he said.

Two other former drug investigators for then-District Attorney Miles
Zimmerman also were charged with the same crime.

Douglas Leroy Megehee, 50, pleaded guilty last year and received a
three-year suspended sentence. Jason Travis Palmer, 39, has a retrial
scheduled July 14, Mitchell said.

Palmer's first trial ended in a mistrial when jurors could not reach a
unanimous verdict.

Zimmerman, who resigned in 1996, pleaded no contest last year to two counts
of diverting state funds in a separate case and received a three-year
deferred sentence.

Mitchell is an assistant district attorney in Oklahoma County. Oklahoma
County District Attorney Bob Macy's office was appointed as special
prosecutor by the state attorney general.

The case was investigated by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.