Krystal J. Carman
A preliminary hearing for a father charged with violating a child custody court order and attempting to persuade his girlfriend to commit perjury has been continued to allow the judge time to listen to as many as 36 recorded jail phone calls.
The phone calls were introduced by the State in a case against Ray Woodson, 42, of Claremore. The court listened to testimony from Rogers County Undersheriff Barry Lamb and two recorded phone calls made from the Rogers County Jail.
Woodson faces charges of violating a child custody court order and attempted perjury by subornation. According to state law, “whoever does any act with the specific intent to commit perjury by subornation but fails to complete that offense is guilty of attempted perjury by subornation.”
There were 31 calls from Woodson’s girlfriend Carla Legates made from the Rogers County Jail, between Oct. 2 and 4. Legates was jailed Oct. 2 for not revealing in open court the location of the couple’s then-4-week-old baby.
Legates was questioned about her baby during a child custody hearing involving an older child who had been taken into state custody two days after birth. That child is now 3.
The 31 calls made from Legates to Woodson, via home phone and a cell phone belonging to John Barlow, and the five calls made from Woodson to Barlow when Woodson was arrested Oct. 3, were recorded by the Rogers County Jail. Two of those calls were played in open court.
In the first phone conversation, Legates informed Woodson that she was in jail.
“They put me in here because they want to know where the baby is,” Legates said on the recording.
Woodson responded, “Why didn’t you do what I told you? The baby’s in Kansas with his daddy and he has custody.”
Assistant District Attorney Jenny Sanbrano had the second call played to indicate that Woodson knew of a child custody order when police tried to contact him at Barlow’s home in Rogers County twice on Oct. 3. She described the Sheriff’s Office efforts to serve the custody order a “day-long process.”
The court order was signed approximately one hour before the child was taken into custody.
Lamb testified the second call was made by Legates to Woodson at Barlow’s home at 4:09 p.m. Oct. 3. During the call, Woodson mentions that a law enforcement officer is outside the home and then he indicates the officer had left.
Although Lamb was not with the officer who made the trip to the home at 4:09 p.m., Oct. 3, he said he did accompany Investigator Darrin Hester and other officers back to the home at 7:49 p.m.
“We knocked on both the front door and the back door, knocked on the sides of the trailer home and shined our flashlights inside the home,” Lamb stated. “We announced who we were and that we had a court order. A phone call was made to the home and we could hear the phone ringing.”
A call to Barlow’s cell phone led to Barlow opening his home at 8:41 p.m. and that is when Lamb said Woodson was informed of the child custody order.
“At first, he pulled away saying, ‘my son was a resident of Kansas and you can’t take him.’ But within a minute, he gave us the child,” Lamb testified.
The State rested its case following Lamb’s testimony. Judge Erin Oquin continued the hearing to July 15. Oquin said she would listen to all 31 recorded jail phone calls.
