For Release: January 05, 2018 – Tony Sellars, Office of Communications (405) 534-1161
The news release issued today by the chair of the House Special Investigation Committee, Josh Cockroft, is once again a misunderstanding of basic facts and a complete ignorance of the legal pleadings and issues in this matter.
In his statement, the chairman claimed that the OSDH filed an injunction to keep our Mike Romero, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) from testifying and that the injunction was denied by the judge. This is wholly false. The OSDH filed an Application to Amend the Subpoena because the subpoena gave less than 48 hours notice for Romero to appear and to produce thousands of documents. That application has not yet been set for hearing and there has been no ruling on it.
After the filing of the Application to Amend the Subpoena, OSDH also filed an Application for an Order Appointing Special Process Servers. Due to the short turnaround time in this matter, the OSDH was seeking permission from the court to allow an OSDH commissioned officer to serve the summons in this matter upon the parties named in the suit. It was this Application to Appoint Special Process Servers that was denied, not the Application to Amend the Subpoena itself.
Today, after issuing his false and defamatory news release, Chairman Cockroft again had another subpoena served upon our CFO. This subpoena requires him to appear on Friday, January 12, 2018 and produce only that documentation which is readily available, not the thousands of pages of documents required under the first subpoena. It is technically improper for the second subpoena to be issued while the Application to Amend the Subpoena is still pending on the first subpoena.
However, because OSDH wants to be transparent and helpful to the investigation in any and every way, the OSDH and the CFO will comply with the second subpoena if Chairman Cockroft voluntarily withdraws the first subpoena.
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Last Modified on
Jun 03, 2022
