From Tulsa Today: (excerpt) Gary Jones, a Republican who narrowly lost two elections to Democrat State Auditor Jeff McMahan in 2002 and 2006, told Tulsa Today that it was the trail of campaign contributions from Gene Stipe, Steve Phipps and their employees to McMahan’s 2002 campaign that led to the discovery of the scheme to funnel millions in tax dollars to Stipe, Phipps, and former Democrat State Reps. Mass, Erwin and Hefner. State Auditor & Inspector Jeff McMahanAfter losing the 2002 election, Jones said he had suspected a Stipe-McMahan connection since 2003, after reading the list of straw donors to Walt Robert’s 1998 campaign. “What really threw up a red flag was the article in the Oklahoman in 2004 about the now-famous National Pet Products, the dog food factory in McAlester. The article listed Gene Stipe, Stipe’s brother Francis, his partner Steve Phipps, along with Karen Carper and Roy Hattridge. What else did these people have in common? They were all major contributors to Jeff McMahan’s campaign,” Jones told Tulsa Today. While Jones was serving as Chairman of the Oklahoma Republican Party, he said people sent him information claiming meetings were being held in the State Auditor’s basement conference room involving Reps. Mike Mass and Randall Erwin, and Stipe’s partner, Steve Phipps. “Supposedly, the topic of discussion was how they could all benefit from the expanded gambling laws, and one person told me that Mass was heard bragging that if they got this through, they would never have to work another day in their lives,” Jones said. “The Internet is an amazing tool,” Jones said. “It allows you to do research and find things in minutes that might take years to do manually – or go undiscovered otherwise. I did a Google search of Steve Phipps, and the first thing that popped up was a press release from the Oklahoma House of Representatives about a newly formed organization called the Rural Development Foundation being awarded a water permit for 25 billion gallons of water from Lake Eufaula – and Steve Phipps was listed as their consultant. Searching further on the Oklahoma Secretary of State’s Web site for Rural Development, it revealed that RDF office was located in Antler’s – at the same address as an abstract company owned by Gene Stipe and Steve Phipps.” Jones shared that information with an Oklahoma state representative, whose further research found that RDF had received a $350,000 line item appropriation in the Department of Commerce’s funding bill. He called back later to say that they received another $350,000 as a line item in the appropriation bill for the Department of Agriculture. Jones said his continued Internet searches led him to a Web site called http://www.followthemoney.org/, where he discovered that the board members of RDF had also contributed to McMahan’s campaign. When Jones entered their names into a Google search, it brought up the Oklahoma State auditor’s Web site and listing employees of all the abstract companies in Oklahoma by county. McMahan’s office regulates all Oklahoma abstract companies. Stipe and Phipps’s biggest venture together are numerous jointly owned abstract companies. This latest search by Tulsa Today shows that several board members of RDF were also employees of abstract companies owned by Stipe and Phipps, and that dozen of other Stipe and Phipps employees were also McMahan contributors. Read more... Click here to view contributions to McMahan from Stipe, Phipps, and employees.

Labels: Frances Stipe, Gary Jones, Gene Stipe, Karen Carper, Mike Mass, Randall Erwin, Roy Hattridge, Steve Phipps

Posted at 3/12/2007 10:15:00 AM