Restaurateur Brent Swadley’s light sentence for fraud isn’t justice for Oklahoma taxpayers

At this point, I shouldn’t have been surprised that another rich, politically connected Oklahoma man got off with the equivalent of a slap on the wrist for a felony conviction.

That seems to be the way of the Oklahoma court system world. Judges and prosecutors throw the book at poorer defendants, sending them to prison for years. Wealthier defendants emerge largely unscathed, giving all the glory to God – and the best attorneys their money could buy.

Apparently, though, a small flicker of naive hope remained in my soul that justice would finally be blind, and that Brent Swadley, a well-off restaurateur convicted of defrauding our state, would get exactly what an Oklahoma jury believed was owed to him — a 10-year stay in prison.

Deep down, I was convinced our court system could be fair. So when our reporter in the courtroom for Swadley’s sentencing messaged me that the judge had completely ignored the jurors’ recommendation, I was floored.

“No prison time for him?” I messaged back.

Indeed. Judge Cindy Truong gave Swadley a six-year suspended sentence and ordered him to pay $1.2 million in restitution. That court-ordered restitution is millions short of what he’s accused of having bilked from taxpayers. Swadley did not even appear to be concerned by the restitution amount. On Oct. 26, his account shows someone had already paid $65,000 to settle fees and fines. That same week Swadley also filed to appeal his conviction.

That means unless he screws up royally, he’ll never spend a second in an Oklahoma prison.

It also means we have a judge who completely disregarded the recommendation of a jury that spent hours away from their jobs and families to do their civic duty.

The least judges can do is take those recommendations seriously.

Months earlier, that jury had convicted Swadley of one count of conspiracy to defraud the state and five counts of giving fraudulent claims to the state.

Swadley and two of his former colleagues were accused of cheating taxpayers after they were hired by Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department to renovate and operate six Swadley’s Foggy Bottom restaurants in state parks.

The three men were accused of perpetuating over $3 million in fraud by submitting inflated invoices. Two defendants in the case, Curtis Breuklander, and Timothy Hooper, pleaded guilty. Breuklander and Hooper received 10 and five years probation, respectively.

At one point, Swadley proudly touted his connections to Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt. Stitt denied those. At another juncture, the state attorney general released phone call transcripts indicating that Swadley wanted the governor to help him out of the jam. (There’s no indication that Stitt did so.)

Swadley, who has denied wrongdoing, decided to try his luck with a jury of his peers. They found him guilty. 

After the verdict, he then surrounded himself with a herd of the best attorneys his deep pockets could buy in what – at the time – seemed like a ridiculous attempt to convince Truong to grant him mercy.

Even the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office was fighting for the jury’s recommended sentence.

Turns out Swadley and his legal counsel were right.

Inexplicably, Truong didn’t believe Swadley should set foot in prison.

The decision was so unexpected that it was met with audible crying from Swadley’s supporters, and there’s video of Swadley collapsing in shock upon hearing he wasn’t going to prison.

“I don’t want DOC or the county to be responsible for you anymore,” Truong said, apparently referring to the Department of Corrections and the Grady County Jail where he’d been housed.

Swadley admittedly has had a rough time behind bars. He had his nose broken by another inmate in the Grady County, where was moved to after having part of his finger chopped off after it got stuck in an Oklahoma County Jail cell door.

That’s horrible, but it doesn’t mean he shouldn’t serve prison time.

Jails and prisons are not fun places. Sometimes they house violent people.

Some crimes deserve prison time. And after hearing all the evidence, an Oklahoma County jury believed committing a multimillion dollar fraud against the state fit that bill.

Truong said she wasn’t excusing Swadley’s behavior, but that the Department of Tourism and Recreation also experienced failures and needed to be held accountable, too.

Maybe those leaders do. But that’s not her decision. A judge’s job is to run a courtroom and oversee trials and the sentencing of people who come before her.

People hire prosecutors to prosecute. We select judges to judge. We do not pay judges to decide who should be prosecuted. And judges shouldn’t be excusing bad behavior just because someone else isn’t being prosecuted.

Juries get it wrong sometimes, and judges should have some discretion. But what is the point of forcing people to serve on juries if judges are just going to completely ignore their sentencing recommendations?

One of Swadley’s attorneys said the sentence was appropriate and “justice was done.”

The case may be done, but this time, justice only benefited one man: the affluent owner of a barbeque chain.

Judges’ decisions like these undermine confidence in our entire justice system and send a signal that if you have enough cash and connection to the powerful, you get special treatment.

Because the next time anyone gets sentenced anywhere in this state to prison for fraud, embezzlement or any other nonviolent, monetary-related felony, Oklahomans are going to remember the case of Brent Swadley.