OKLAHOMA CITY — State Superintendent Ryan Walters will not face criminal charges over reports of explicit images appearing on his office TV, the Oklahoma County district attorney’s office announced Wednesday.
A two-sentence news release from District Attorney Vicki Behenna revealed her office found insufficient evidence to file criminal charges. The Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation both looked into the matter.
Two members of the Oklahoma State Board of Education reported seeing images of naked women on the Samsung TV in Walters’ office during a private portion of the board’s July 24 meeting. Walters called the reports “categorically false,” but an investigation by House Speaker Kyle Hilbert suggested the cause might have been a 1985 Jackie Chan film that spontaneously started playing on the TV’s Samsung movie channel.
The district attorney’s announcement did not discuss whether law enforcement reached a similar conclusion. A spokesperson for Behenna’s office did not immediately return a request for comment on what investigators believe happened.
Walters’ office also did not immediately comment.
Hilbert and the Office of Management and Enterprise Services investigated and learned the TV, which had been recently installed in Walters’ office in the Oklahoma State Department of Education, automatically launched the Samsung TV Plus Channel 1204 (Movie Hub Action) when powered on, the speaker said in an Aug. 5 report.
Hilbert obtained the channel’s broadcast schedule from a government affairs specialist at Samsung. He said the schedule showed the 1985 film “The Protector” starring Jackie Chan and Danny Aiello broadcast during the hours of the state Board of Education meeting.
Images from the movie, which includes multiple scenes with naked women, match closely with what board members Becky Carson and Ryan Deatherage, as well as Walters himself, reported seeing on the screen, according to the speaker’s report.
Walters had accused Carson and Deatherage of lying about what they saw, and he suggested their claims were a set-up organized by Gov. Kevin Stitt, who appointed them to the board.
Hilbert, though, said the likely cause was a “bizarre accident,” not a planned conspiracy.
Walters and the board have yet to meet since the incident.
Carson and Deatherage did not immediately return a request for comment after the district attorney’s announcement Wednesday.
After a special board meeting Sept. 3, which Walters did not attend, Carson said even if the law enforcement investigation into what happened finds no criminal wrongdoing, “it doesn’t make it right.”
“I think anybody in this position would appreciate an apology,” she said.
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