By Patti Weaver
(Stillwater, Okla.) — A Cushing man, who pleaded guilty to having sexual relations with a 14-year-old girl on three occasions when he was 20, has been ordered to register as a sex offender for life on his release from the Payne County Jail — where he remains held today.
Brett Lee Bozworth, now 21, was sentenced last week on three counts of second-degree rape of a girl under the age of 16, for which he was ordered to serve 365 days in jail followed by nine years of probation by Associate District Judge Stephen Kistler, who gave him credit for the time he has served since his arrest last June.
Bozworth was ordered to submit a DNA sample, forfeit any rights to his confiscated phone, follow all the rules of a sex offender including limitations on social media, and pay the cost of his incarceration along with $300 to the victims’ compensation fund. An emergency protective order obtained by the girl’s father on her behalf was extended to remain valid for five years after his release from jail, court records show.
When the 14-year-old girl was interviewed at the Saville Center in Stillwater on June 25, 2018, she said “she believed Bozworth needed to get some help because he was attracted to ‘younger kids,"” Cushing Police Officer Jerrod Livergood wrote in an affidavit.
The officer had been sent to a Cushing home on June 16, 2018, about a runaway 14-year-old girl, who was interviewed at the Cushing hospital after she was located, the affidavit said.
“I was later advised that the emergency room staff believed (the girl) may have been raped due to vaginal injuries and pain,” the Cushing officer wrote in his affidavit.
At 12:20 a.m. on June 17, 2018, a nurse conducted a medical examination of the girl in which she collected evidence for a sexual assault and blood kit, the affidavit said.
The girl initially told the nurse she left home about 4 a.m. on June 16, 2018, and was picked up close to her house by a stranger, who offered her a ride out of town, the affidavit said. She said she had a lapse of memory most of the day, but was dropped off on the side of the road late in the evening and had a lot of pain, the affidavit said.
But on June 20, 2018, the girl’s mother told the Cushing officer “she found messages between a 20-year-old male named Brett Bozworth that were of concern,” and believed that her daughter was “protecting Bozworth so he wouldn’t get in trouble,” the affidavit said.
When Bozworth was interviewed on June 24, 2018, at the Cushing Police Department, he initially denied being with the girl on June 16, 2018, the night she ran away, the affidavit said.
After Bozworth provided a swab for DNA to be compared to the sexual assault kit, he admitted being with the girl on June 16, 2018, the affidavit said.
Bozworth said that he and the underage girl “were in a ‘talking’ relationship and that they had consensual sex,” at a house on S. Central Street in Cushing on June 16, 2018, the affidavit said.
Bozworth said that later in the day he and his friend dropped the girl off in another town at her relative’s residence, the affidavit said.
Bozworth admitted that he knew she was 14 “and that it was illegal to have sex with her,” the affidavit said.
Bozworth said the first time they had sex was in her bed in the beginning of May of 2018 when she went home sick from school, the affidavit said.
“Bozworth advised (the girl) previously sent him a few provocative photographs of herself,” one of which he said was still on his cell phone, for which he signed a consent to search, the affidavit said.
During an interview on June 25, 2018, with the girl at the Saville Center, the girl said “she has been in a relationship with 20-year-old Brett Bozworth for about two months and has known him for several years,” the affidavit said.
She said “she has had sex with Bozworth three times beginning when she was in the 9th grade and 14-years-old,” the affidavit said.
She said that “she never told Bozworth ‘no’ when he wanted to have sex, although each time she advised that she was afraid of losing the relationship so she allowed him to have sex with her,” the affidavit said.
She said “since he was over 18, they kept the relationship a secret because they both knew if they got caught he would go to jail,” the affidavit said.
The girl’s parents “reported the rape and wish to pursue charges on Bozworth,” the affidavit said.
In a petition for an emergency protective order that was granted, the girl’s father wrote “Brett Bozworth had been snapping or snap-chatting my 14-year-old daughter two months prior to the incident. (He) sent a pic of genital area and asked for pics of her nude.”
“We took her to hospital in Cushing and she had a rape kit performed,” the girl’s father wrote in his EPO petition.
The girl’s father wrote that Bozworth had been contacting a 14-year-old male relative of the father and asking to see the girl.
“We want no type of contact from him,” the girl’s father wrote in his protective order petition.
According to court records, nine months earlier when Bozworth was 19, he was charged with violating a protective order by transporting a 13-year-old girl in his vehicle on Sept. 8, 2017 — two months after an EPO regarding that girl was obtained by her mother on her behalf.
The following month, Bozworth pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge for which he was given a 30-day jail term, with credit for time served, ordered to provide a DNA sample and pay incarceration costs, court records show.
In that case, Bozworth was arrested by Cushing Police Officer Christopher Haywood at 2:26 a.m. on Sept. 8, 2017, after a traffic stop during which the officer noticed someone lying in the back seat, his affidavit said.
“I asked Brett who was in the back seat. Brett said, ‘I’m in deep shit.’ I asked Brett again who was in the back seat. Brett mumbled the passenger’s name,” the Cushing officer wrote in his affidavit.
When the officer asked the passenger how old she was, she said she was only 13 and admitted that her mother did not know she was out of the house, the affidavit said.
After Cushing Police Sgt. Matt Piatt arrived, while the girl was sitting in a patrol car pending her return to her mother, “I returned to Brett and asked him why he would be in trouble. Brett advised (the 13-year-old girl’s) mother had a ‘restraining order’ against him,” the Cushing officer wrote in his affidavit.
When the Cushing officer confirmed that the girl’s mother had a protective order against Bozworth on behalf of her daughter, the girl’s mother picked up the girl and Bozworth was arrested, the affidavit said.
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