TULSA--A longtime judge denied allegations of indecent exposure, and his lawyers pointed to his accusers as unstable.Two felony counts were filed Thursday against Tulsa County District Judge Jesse Harris, 53, and he was briefly placed in the Tulsa Jail before he was released on his own recognizance.
The longtime judge is charged with exposing himself to an ex-girlfriend and her friend in the parking lot of an east Tulsa hotel the night of March 9.
The judge denied the allegation, and said he spoke to his former girlfriend from his car for about five to eight minutes, and then left.
“Judge Harris wants the community to know he did not do this,” Allen Smallwood, one of the judge’s lawyers, said. “He has full trust that the criminal justice system will exonerate him.”
The women reported the allegation to Tulsa police within hours after the meeting.
Attorneys for the judge said he never met the ex-girlfriend’s friend, and said he only waved to her from his car.
“We are not disputing that the discussion happened,” Mr. Smallwood said. “We are disputing what happened.”
Joel Wohlmuth, another attorney for Judge Harris, said his client does not expect or want special treatment, but is entitled to a complete and fair investigation.
He said consideration of the charges should include the motivations and the past behavior of the accusers.
“This did not happen,” the defense attorney said. “We will fight this.”
Mr. Smallwood said there are credibility issues with the two women accusing the judge.
The ex-girlfriend is involved in a guardianship case to regain custody of her children, the lawyer pointed out.
The other woman, the defense attorneys said, is in the Tulsa Jail on drunk-driving complaints, is on probation in Mississippi for past drunk-driving convictions and has other felony convictions.
Kali Nolen, 32, who has been identified as the judge’s ex-girlfriend making the allegations, said Friday that she is determined to see the case through.
“I am not afraid to stand up to him,” Miss Nolen said, referring to Judge Harris. “I have had it once and for all.”
She said she was working as a process server when she met Judge Harris at the Tulsa County Courthouse during a 2002 lewd molestation trial.
She said they had dinner in his chambers.
“I noticed that he had been looking at me during the trial,” the judge’s accuser continued to describe how they met.
“The last day of the trial, while the jury was deliberating, he asked me to come into his chambers and speak to him, and that is when I had dinner with him.”
Miss Nolen said she and the judge dated for about three years until they broke up.
They then had an off-and-on relationship, she commented.
She said Judge Harris had called her several times during recent months.
A police affidavit quoted Miss Nolen as saying that she called Judge Harris on the morning of March 9 from the Extended Stay Hotel, 8201 E. Skelly Dr.
Miss Nolen told police she was asking for legal advice for her friend, according to the police affidavit, and Judge Harris said he would call her back.
The friend (a 38-year-old woman who has not been identified) has since been jailed on driving under the influence charges, according to Tulsa Jail records.
Judge Nolen drove up to Miss Nolen’s hotel room at about 11 a.m. on March 9, and they talked, police said in the affidavit.
“He has a history of just showing up like this,” Miss Nolen said to reporters, pointing out that she had not invited the judge to her hotel.
According to the police affidavit, Miss Nolen alleged that, while she and Judge Harris were talking in the parking lot, he asked her about her friend’s appearance and suggested that she and her friend engage in a ménage a trois.
Miss Nolen said, according to the police affidavit, that Judge Harris was “rubbing his penis through his pants,” and “asked her if she missed his [‘Anaconda’].”
“Anaconda,” Miss Nolen told police, is a pet name Judge Harris used to refer to his sex organ.
The accuser claimed that Judge Harris got out of his car, exposing himself “through the fly of his trousers,” and continued speaking to her while he masturbated.
It was at that time that Miss Nolen’s friend exited the motel room and approached Judge Harris’ car, the affidavit continued.
“Victim Two,” the affidavit went on, referring to Miss Nolen’s 38-year-old friend, “exited the motel room….and approached [Judge Harris’] vehicle.”
Miss Nolen’s friend told police that Judge Harris was exposed as he continued to talk to Miss Nolen, but, after a few seconds, he zipped up his pants.
The two women then returned to their motel room, and Judge Harris left, according to the affidavit.
Mr. Smallwood, the defense attorney for the judge, said that a woman who was cleaning rooms at the hotel witnessed the meeting between Judge Harris and the two women, and she backs up the judge’s account of the encounter.
The police affidavit also said a hotel cleaning woman had observed the conversation between two people meeting Miss Nolen’s and Judge Harris’ description.
According to the affidavit, the hotel cleaning woman told police she did not observe the alleged indecent exposure or hear the conversation.
Yet another woman may also prove to be a witness in support of the judge, Mr. Smallwood said.
“There is no independent corroborating or physical evidence that this occurred,” Mr. Smallwood noted, “beyond statements by a spurned ex-girlfriend and her friend, who have a huge amount of self-interest in this.”
Tulsa County District Attorney Tim Harris recused himself from the case, and Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson appointed Washington County District Attorney Rick Esser as special prosecutor.
Charges were filed in Washington County Thursday evening.
An arraignment has been set for May 16.
Judge Harris has been on the bench since 1986, serving as a special judge, and he was first elected a district judge in 1994.
Prior to serving on the bench, he was an assistant district attorney.
