By: Patti Weaver
(Stillwater, Okla.) — A Cushing man with a long criminal record was arraigned Tuesday by video from the Payne County Jail where he remains held on $40,000 bail on a felony charge of possessing marijuana with intent to distribute and a misdemeanor count of attempting to elude police through numerous streets in Cushing.
According to court records and the state Department of Corrections, Gary Don Cook Sr., 39, had been released from prison in March of 2019 after serving two years and two months of an eight-year sentence for drug possession in Chandler.
In his latest case, Cook was arrested at 12:09 am on Dec. 1 in an alley of the 1200 block of S. Walnut where he was located by Cushing Deputy Police Chief Nick Myers, according to an affidavit by Cushing Police Officer Garvis Scott Thomas.
About 25 minutes earlier, the Cushing officer had attempted to conduct a traffic stop due a defective headlight on a car driven by Cook, who traveled through various streets and alleys before parking and running, Thomas’s affidavit alleged.
“There was a female passenger still sitting in the front passenger seat,” when the officer saw a large broken mason jar full of marijuana in the floorboard, his affidavit alleged.
She “explained that it was not hers and it ended up in her floorboard when Cook was attempting to get away,” the affidavit alleged.
The woman said “she was unsure why Cook failed to stop, but she thought it was because he did not have a valid driver’s license,” the affidavit alleged.
She said that Cook had just picked her up and they were headed to his house for the night, the affidavit alleged.
“Deputy Chief Nick Myers located Cook approximately one block from my location walking on the street,” the officer wrote in his affidavit.
“Cook did not wish to make a statement,” the affidavit said.
“I photographed the large amount of marijuana with my department-issued camera before collecting it for evidence. I also located a large amount of small individual bags in between the driver and passenger seat. Also located in between the seats was another bag,” that had three pipes and three additional bags of marijuana, the officer alleged in his affidavit.
Cook has a criminal record dating back almost 20 years ago when he was sent to the state prison’s Regimented Inmate Discipline (RID) boot camp program for second-degree burglary in Cushing in 2001 after which he was placed on probation for almost five years, court records show.
Cook had also been convicted of second-degree burglary in Ripley in 2002 for which he was given a concurrent sentence to his Cushing case, court records show.
Cook also had been convicted of larceny from a house in Cushing in 2004 for which he was given a seven-year prison term, but paroled after two years and nine months, DOC records show.
Cook also had been convicted of second-degree burglary in Payne County in 2007 for which he was given a six-year prison term, but only served about two years.
Cook also was convicted of domestic abuse in 2013 in Payne County for which he was given probation that was revoked to almost four years in prison in 2016 when he also was given a concurrent prison term of seven years for unauthorized use of a vehicle in 2011 for which he was originally given probation, DOC records show.
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