New Payne County District Attorney Jeremiah Gregory says he inherited a ‘cloud of distrust’ after the Jesse Butler case and is pushing for an independent investigation.

Background of the Case

The Payne County District Attorney’s Office has faced tough questions from the community after a high-profile sexual assault case that Gregory had no role in prosecuting. Gregory said he would have handled things differently, and he is calling for outside investigators to find out what exactly happened.

Butler, who was a Stillwater teenager at the time, was initially charged as an adult. He was later granted youthful offender status in a deal agreed to by the previous district attorney, who retired in April. Butler entered a no-contest plea in the case that involved the sexual assault of two teenage girls.

Last week, his case was dismissed after he completed his rehabilitation plan, a plan that did not include jail time. Gregory said he wants an independent investigation into what happened inside the District Attorney’s Office leading up to the deal.

Call for Independent Investigation

Gregory is calling on Oklahoma’s next attorney general to bring in prosecutors and investigators from another state to present their findings to a multi-county grand jury and release the findings to the public.

‘The community needs to have closure. The community needs to know what has happened,’ Gregory said. ‘I think that’s going to be the only way that we can heal and prevent whatever happened from happening again is through that third-party investigation.’

Original reporting: Oklahoma City News Feed (HLL/CB) — read the source article.