(Stillwater, Okla.) – A Cushing man, who was convicted of indecent exposure in Texas in 2012, has been accused of domestic violence of his baby’s mother and failure to register as a sex offender on Sept. 18 in Cushing – five days after he appeared in Payne County District Court on a drug charge.
Eli Jerome Lemon, 29, who previously lived in Houston, Tex., remains free on $12,500 total bail pending a Nov. 14 court appearance on his Payne County charges, court records show.
Cushing Police Officer Jack Ford was sent to Lemon’s residence in the 500 block of E. Broadway on Sept. 18 where Lemon’s girlfriend said that they got into an argument about her not washing the baby bottles, an affidavit said.
She said that after she told Lemon “he didn’t have a job so he could wash the bottles while she was at work,” he became mad, grabbed her and they fell to the floor, the officer’s affidavit alleged.
The woman, who had a scratch mark starting on the side of her forehead that went across the right eye and ended below the eye, said that Lemon had scratched her with his fingernails, the affidavit alleged.
“Officers found Eli (Lemon) in the back room with his small child laying on the bed,” the affidavit said.
After Lemon was arrested, the officer asked the woman if she would allow him to take a picture of her injury, but she said “she didn’t want to file charges,” the affidavit said. Asked if he could fill out a domestic violence lethality screen, the woman said no, the affidavit alleged.
When Lemon was interviewed by another Cushing officer, he said that the fight was over a phone number that the woman found on his phone, which he claimed she grabbed, broke and threw back at him, the affidavit alleged.
About three months earlier, the officer had been sent to the same residence to contact Lemon about his failure to register as a sex offender, Ford’s affidavit said. “I explained to him that he had to register as a sex offender at the Cushing Police Department and was to make contact with records immediately to register,” Ford alleged in his affidavit.
“On Sept. 18, 2018, Records Clerk Susan Dooley told me that Eli (Lemon) has not made any effort to get registered,” Ford alleged in his affidavit.
The Cushing residence where Lemon had been living was located about 919 feet from the Upper Elementary School, the affidavit said.
If convicted of domestic violence in Cushing on Sept. 18 as a second offense after a prior conviction on Feb. 18 in Harris County, Texas, Lemon could be given as much as a four-year jail term. If convicted of a violation of the Sex Offender Registration Act in Oklahoma, Lemon could be given as much as a five-year prison term.
Lemon’s felony charges were filed about three months after he was released from the Payne County Jail on $7,500 bail on a misdemeanor count of possessing hydrocodone that was alleged found during a traffic stop by Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper Derek Fry on U.S. 177 near County Road 80th at 6:10 p.m. on June 24, court records show.
The trooper alleged that Lemon was traveling 78 mph in a 65 mph zone southbound in the inside lane of U.S. 177, when he was stopped, the affidavit said. “The driver was visibly nervous and explained he did not have a driver’s license on him and did not have his insurance,” the affidavit said.
When the driver identified himself as Eli Jerome Lemon of Houston, Tex, the trooper ran a background check on his car computer and with OHP headquarters in Perry, the affidavit said.
“Both sources returned that Lemon was suspended out of Texas and an advisory warning that he was a member of a criminal gang called the Knockout Boyz,” the affidavit alleged.
After Lemon was arrested for driving under suspension, the trooper “observed that Lemon had tried to throw away some pills on the ground,” and found pills were scattered on his patrol car’s floorboard as well as outside the patrol car’s passenger front door, the affidavit alleged.
Asked why he threw pills into the patrol car, Lemon said “he had found them after work and they must have fallen out of his pocket,” the affidavit alleged.
The pills, imprinted Watson 853, were hydrocodone, the affidavit said.
After seating Lemon in grass on the road’s shoulder while the trooper searched the vehicle, a defaced prescription bottle that was empty was located behind the driver’s seat on the rear floorboard with the lid off, the affidavit alleged.
The trooper “then observed that more pills were in the grass around Lemon,” the affidavit alleged.
After the trooper collected those and had Lemon stand on the shoulder, “more pills fell out of his pants and into his shoes and onto the ground,” the affidavit alleged.
When the trooper asked Lemon why pills kept falling from his pants, “he explained he had the pills concealed in his underwear,” the affidavit alleged.
If convicted of the misdemeanor drug charge, Lemon could be given a one-year jail term, court records show.
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