Vicki Behenna, the Democrat nominee for Oklahoma County District Attorney, is currently arguing for a new trial for the now convicted Big Red Sports and Imports owner, Chris Mayes. After Behenna’s latest response submitted in federal court, things were not adding up to the point that a deep dive into the case was warranted. After a careful review of the trial transcript, it seems the question must be asked – What did Vicki Behenna know and when did she know it?
Read my previous article to catch up.
As we previously reported, soon after co-defendant and now-convicted Courtney Wells disappeared, Big Red Sports owner Chris Mayes claimed to have discovered a trove of Wells’ old work emails, which if true would completely exonerate Mayes of all wrongdoing. Behenna submitted those emails to the court in an attempt to have Mayes’ conviction overturned. However, the emails supposedly written by Wells were date-stamped on May 3rd – the day after Wells allegedly began her flight from the law.
Why would Courtney Wells do something so irrational – confessing to a crime while her case is pending on appeal, going to her own office to send confessional emails while she’s running from law enforcement, and skipping her only child’s high school graduation?
The subtext of the U.S. Attorney’s office words provide a glaringly obvious and quite alarming answer. Someone other than Courtney Wells wrote those emails to try to get Chris Mayes off the hook. Behenna knew that, yet she submitted the emails as evidence to the court anyway. Wells is now inexplicably “missing” and the only person who could conceivably benefit from her mysterious disappearance is Behenna’s client, the now-convicted Chris Mayes.
In Behenna’s most recent response to the court, she attempts to dispel the inauthenticity of the emails by citing witness statements placing Wells at work on May 3rd. Three of these witnesses, Ms. Lillard, Mr. Banfield, and Ms. Allegre, are employees who were instrumental in the discovery of the new evidence and previously submitted affidavits. There is one major problem – to believe what’s presented to the Court, the timeline of events, in addition to the two separate affidavits provided by these employees, would need to reconcile with one another, but they don’t.
According to the original motion, following Ms. Lillard discovering new evidence on May 5th, Mayes contacted Behenna because he became concerned that Wells was missing. This was two days after Mayes received the confession email and being told on that same day by Wells’s daughter that Courtney Wells was not coming back. It’s clear that at this point in time Behenna was concerned about the disappearance as she advised Mayes to have Wells’s office searched.
It was also clear from the trial transcript that Mayes would invoke fear when he felt the walls closing in. In 2014, Peak Acceptance, a loan servicing company Big Red had partnered with, sent him a demand letter after exposing the financial scheme. On December 31st, when it was clear Peak wouldn’t back off their investigation, Mayes wrote a threatening email to Peak CEO Steven David. This email ended with, “So I would like to wish you, Perry Andrew, and Ainsley August a very happy and safe New Year.” Perry Andrew and Ainsley August are Steven David’s children.
Behenna objected to the introduction of this email and it’s clear she did not want Mayes’s character on trial. Discussions between the judge and defense counsel prevented the introduction of testimony to that end. Per the transcript, it appears one witness was willing but, due to Behenna’s objections, was unable to testify that she believed Mayes had followed her and would have had her killed.
It’s unclear why the prosecution didn’t have David testify before this witness, as it seems it would have been allowed.
The question remains – what did Behenna know and when did she know it?
Behenna knew about the threats to David’s children, what testimony she needed to prevent the jury from hearing, and how to prevent Mayes’s character from being put on trial.
The affidavits originally submitted by Lillard, Banfield, and Allegre only contained their sworn statements about the new evidence found during the search Behenna ordered. More importantly, these affidavits were taken after Behenna became aware of Wells’s disappearance.
Why would it only be when Wells’s location came into question – challenging the validity of the email confession – that Behenna would drag her feet to include the fact that Courtney Wells was last seen on May 3rd in new affidavits? Moreover, why did it take her until May 9th, an additional four days after being told by Mayes, to report to the U.S. Attorney’s office that Wells is missing?
Two Oklahomans disappeared four months ago and no one has heard from them since. The U.S. Attorney’s Office suspects foul play yet Vicki Behenna is throwing out every conceivable roadblock to keep investigators from learning the truth about a potential double murder. She is so determined to keep the truth a secret that the U.S. Attorney’s Office alleges Behenna knowingly submitted false evidence to the courts.
The question many are wondering now is, “what did Behenna know and when did she know it?”
