By Patti Weaver

 

(Stillwater, Okla.) — A Cushing man with an extensive criminal record, who did not have a plea agreement with the prosecution regarding his penalty, was sentenced Friday to six years in prison by District Judge Phillip Corley for being a convicted felon in possession of a .38 special revolver on March 1, 2017.

Payne County Assistant District Attorney Jeremiah Gregory had recommended to the judge that Richard Douglas Ward, 38, who had multiple prior felony convictions for which he had been incarcerated, be given a 15-year prison term for the firearm offense.

Defense attorney Sherry Boyce said in court Friday that Ward has permanent disabilities as a result of a car wreck and was addicted to the pain medication, OxyContin, but “since he’s been in jail, he’s been off that. He has very severe bipolar disorder. He’s on a mood stabilizer,” in the Payne County Jail.

Asked if wanted to say anything, Ward addressed the judge Friday: “I just ask you to take it easy on me because I have four kids.”

Before sentencing Ward to prison, the judge said, “Mr. Ward, you are at least a six-time convicted felon. You have to stay on your medication properly and not use other drugs.”

Ward was originally charged with breaking into a car and possessing methamphetamine, but those counts were dropped before he pleaded guilty to being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm that was found in a safe seized from his vehicle, court records show.

Ward had been arrested by Cushing Police Officer Rachel Hentges at 3:24 p.m. on March 1, 2017, at Seventh and Little Streets after being sent there about a vehicle burglary, according to her affidavit.
A caller reported that Ward was walking toward the car owner with a gun, her affidavit alleged.

“Ward spontaneously told me the gun was a toy and he had been playing a trick,” on the car owner, the Cushing officer wrote in her affidavit.

A baggy of multiple different pills, a bag containing three baggies of a substance that field-tested as methamphetamine and a baggy containing a substance that field-tested as marijuana were all removed from Ward, the affidavit alleged.

The car owner said that he was texted by Ward, who said he had put “it” under his car seat, which Ward later clarified as “that gun,” the affidavit said. He said “he did not know why Ward would have put a gun under his driver’s seat,” the affidavit alleged.

According to records from the state Department of Corrections and the court system, Ward had been released from prison in June 2012 after serving about one-third of a jury-recommended 15-year sentence he was given in 2007 for second-degree burglary in Payne County in 2005.

Ward also served concurrently about one-third of a 14-year prison term he was given in 2007 for possessing methamphetamine and marijuana in Cushing in 2005, court records show.

In addition to his Payne County convictions, according to DOC records Ward also received:
* two concurrent three-year prison terms from Pushmataha County in 2000 for carrying a firearm after a former felony conviction in 1999 and knowingly concealing stolen property in 1998;
* four concurrent three-year probationary terms from Pottawatomie County in 1998 for two counts each of knowingly concealing stolen property and passing a forged instrument.

 

***