By: Patti Weaver
(Stillwater, Okla.) — A felony charge of delivering methamphetamine to an undercover agent of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics at Memorial Park in Cushing has been dropped against an ex-convict from Cushing due to his death, court records show.
When Robert Joseph Carlin, 68, failed to appear in court last week, the prosecution and defense attorneys advised District Judge Phillip Corley that Carlin had died, court records show.
After Carlin’s co-defendant, Gregory Bryan Kindley, 47, of Cushing, pleaded guilty last August to the charge, Kindley was ordered into the Payne County Drug Court program by Associate District Judge Stephen Kistler, who scheduled his sentencing for Aug. 7 of this year.
An OBN undercover agent had texted Kindley on June 4, 2018, about purchasing two grams of methamphetamine, according to an affidavit.
“Kindley and I texted back and forth about who I was and how we knew each other. I told Kindley my name was Billy and that we met a few weeks earlier and he told me to call him if I needed any dope,” the OBN agent wrote in an affidavit.
“Kindley said the price would be $160 for 2. Kindley stated for me to meet him at Memorial Park in Cushing near the intersection of 7th Street and S.Thompson Street,” the OBN agent wrote in his affidavit.
At about 2:20 p.m. that day, after a Payne County sheriff’s deputy dropped the OBN agent off in the park near the amphitheater, the OBN agent texted Kindley that he was at the location, the affidavit said.
“Kindley called me and stated he had to go about three blocks to a friend’s house and would be right back,” the OBN agent wrote in his affidavit.
After a brief drive, “Kindley exited the vehicle and walked toward me as I was sitting on bleachers in the park. Kindley asked how he knew me and I told him from a few weeks prior meeting him” at a convenience store in Cushing, the OBN agent wrote in his affidavit.
After the OBN agent handed Kindley $160, Kindley handed him a rolled-up paper bag from his left front pocket that contained two quarter-sized zip lock baggies containing a crystalline-type substance, the affidavit said.
“I gave the ‘bust’ signal and walked away from Kindley. I observed Carlin sitting in the passenger seat of the Impala watching the transaction take place,” the OBN agent wrote in his affidavit.
A Payne County sheriff’s deputy and three Cushing police officers came to the location, placed Kindley in custody and detained Carlin, the affidavit said.
When a search warrant was obtained for Carlin’s house in the 200 block of E. 8th Street in Cushing, the OBN agent found a baggy of a green leafy substance under the mattress in Carlin’s bedroom, a stuffed monkey containing a large bag of a crystalline substance along with four small bags of the substance, miscellaneous baggies and smoking devices — and a ledger of names and amounts of monies owed and paid, the affidavit said.
At the time of his arrest, Carlin was on parole from a 20-year prison term he had been given in 2005 for drug trafficking in Payne County in 2002, of which he served 11 years until his release in November 2016, state Department of Corrections records show.
Carlin also had three prior drug convictions for which he served prison sentences — two from Tulsa County in 1992 and 1992 and one from Lincoln County in 2002, DOC records show.
Carlin also had two prior drunk driving convictions in 1988 and 1989 for which he served prison sentences from Payne County, DOC records show.
Carlin also had been convicted in 1994 of altering or forging a title certificate in Payne County, for which he served a prison sentence, DOC records show.
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