By: Patti Weaver
(Stillwater, Okla.) — An arrest warrant has been issued in Payne County for a 25-year-old Tulsa man accused of stealing $1,000 in cash from a Cushing woman shortly after she met him on Facebook Dating.
A bench warrant had already been issued in Tulsa County for Taylor Reece Ryon in a 2016 methamphetamine possession case for his allegedly violating probation by breaking into Archery Outpost in Tulsa in 2016 — one month after he was given a three-year deferred sentence in his drug case.
Cushing Police Officer Cody Carpenter was sent at 6:49 a.m. on May 22 to the victim’s apartment on a larceny report, according to his affidavit for an arrest warrant that was issued last week.
A woman said that $1,000 in cash and a hairdryer were stolen from her apartment, the affidavit said. She said “her cash was hidden behind an air vent in the apartment,” the affidavit said. She said “she kept the cash in a shoe box for safekeeping until she could afford to get herself a house,” the affidavit said.
Asked by the officer if she knew who stole the money and hairdryer, she said “she met a guy she knew as Taylor on Facebook Dating and he knew where the money was…She did not know his last name, but mentioned he had been arrested a few times in Tulsa,” the affidavit said.
When the officer asked how the man knew where the money was hidden, she said, “she showed Taylor where she hid the money last week when they started to see each other,” the affidavit alleged.
She said “Taylor was left in her apartment alone on May 21 when she was working the late shift,” at a fast-food restaurant, the affidavit alleged. She said “when she came home, Taylor left her residence,” the affidavit alleged.
She said ‘she checked the hiding spot where she kept the money and discovered it was missing…no one else had access to her apartment since then,” the affidavit alleged.
Asked if she knew how to contact the man besides Facebook Dating, the woman provided a phone number for him, the affidavit alleged.
She said “if the money could be recovered, she would not press charges against Taylor for grand larceny,” the affidavit alleged.
The officer tried to contact the man at 10:45 a.m. that day and left a message for him to call back, the affidavit said.
The next day at 1 p.m., the woman contacted police to report she located the man on Facebook and provided his name as Taylor Ryon, the affidavit alleged.
The Cushing officer wrote in his affidavit, “I researched Ryon via Facebook and located an individual with the same name and matched the photo (the woman) provided of him.”
Further research showed that Ryon had two felony cases in Tulsa County, the affidavit said.
When the officer again tried to call Ryon, “The phone rang twice and went to voicemail,” where the officer left a message asking Ryon to call back about the incident, but he did not, the affidavit alleged.
On May 28, the officer had a voice mail from the woman, who “advised she was in contact with Ryon over the last few days,” the affidavit said.
She said, “Ryon would return the items he took from her when he got the money and the chance to return them,” but she had not heard back from him in a few days, the affidavit alleged.
She said “she has been cleaning up around her apartment and noticed additional items missing from her home,” listed as a vacuum cleaner and a hair straightener, the affidavit said.
If apprehended and convicted of grand larceny, Ryon could be given as much as a five-year prison term and a $5,000 fine, court records show.
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