By Trevor Dunbar
City Editor
(edited)
The Knights-Templar building, at 122 E. Carl Albert Prkwy., may soon be the temporary site for the Pittsburg County Courthouse.
Documents obtained from the county courthouse indicate Steve Covington is the owner of the building. A deed filed in the courthouse on Dec. 11 says Covington received the property from
Gene Stipe. The deed itself is dated Nov. 11, 2005.
“Anybody can fix a deed with any date and then hold on to it,” Pittsburg County Clerk Debbie Burch said. “It wasn’t filed with us until Dec. 11, 2006.”
A sales price affidavit also filed at the courthouse lists the price for which Stipe sold Covington the property as $0. The market value of the property is $112,872, according to the county assessor’s office.
“They put down zero and we can’t argue with that,” Burch said. “What ever they put down is what we go by. They are representing to the county he gave it to him for zero.”
The News-Capital reported on Oct. 8, 2005, that Stipe and Covington were ordered to quit associating with one another by Chief U.S. Probation Officer Kelly Garrett.
Garrett said initially, due to pre-existing employment arrangements, the men had been allowed to associate. However, on Oct. 8, 2005, Garrett said the probation office had changed its position.
“We believe it’s in the best interest of the court that they not associate with each other,” Garrett told the News-Capital.
Both men have federal convictions. Stipe is currently under five years probation, as part of a federal sentence given him in January 2004 on charges including perjury, conspiracy to obstruct a Federal Election Commission investigation and conspiracy to violate the Federal Election Campaign Act.
Covington was sentenced to 10 months in federal custody, plus 36 months of supervised release on Oct. 4, 2002 for federal mail fraud in connection with an odometer rollback scheme, according to the U.S. Probation Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma.
Jeff Belote, Covington’s attorney, spoke with the News-Capital. He said Covington does currently own the building, but he’s in the process of selling it to Premier Development LLC.
“The Premier group is a real estate investment group in Edmond,” Belote said. “Steve is not a member of the LLC. He plans on selling the building to the Premier group, and they plan on renovating it. The sale should be complete within the next week or so. It could be as quick as the next several days.”
When asked why Premier Development LLC was already working with county commissioners on the lease if Covington still owned the building, Belote said the group has intended to purchase the property from Covington for some time.
“They’ve been working on it for a while,” Belote said. “That’s been what was going to happen all along. It was the plan to sell it to them all along. It’s just not formally finished. The deed hasn’t been transferred yet.”
When asked who the partners in Premier Development LLC are, Miller said he was unsure.
“I don’t know,” Miller said.
Read more...Labels: Gene Stipe, Steve Covington
Posted at 2/01/2007 09:03:00 AM
