BRISTOW, OK — Did former district court judge Donald Thompson masturbate on the bench while hearing a court case or merely have one – no – two penis pumps with him? If one of the pumps was, indeed, jutting from the former judge’s robes, was it fully engaged or merely being idly tested for structural integrity and general positioning? These are among the burning questions that a jury will decide as the once-respected judge faces four felony counts of indecent exposure.According to Thompson’s attorney, the case is the result of an unfortunate misunderstanding due to bad judgment on his client’s part. As Clark Brewster explains it, the past magistrate had never tried to hide the fact he had received a penis pump as a gag gift for his birthday, although it was also true that the man had expanded his collection by purchasing a second as part of an erectile dysfunction treatment and general health plan he was pursing under a physician’s guidance. But that’s a big difference from actually sitting on the bench and stroking his most private of private parts.
Instead, Thompson proposed that some among the local police force might well have been looking for a way to get back at Thompson for having made decisions not in line with the department’s preferences.
Thanks to pre-trial buzz about the case, it has been relocated 15 miles from Bristow in Sapulpa, where Sapulpa Police Captain Mike Reed has testified that he had seen the penis pump in question in 2003, when he alleges that heard a suspicious “air pressure” sound coming from the vicinity of then-judge Thompson’s pants during an August murder trial. According to the officer, Thompson was seated with his elbows on his knees and a tube running along his robe and between his knees.
In order to fully appreciate the implications of Reed’s testimony, jurors were shown one of the two pumps that Thompson kept in his chamber filing cabinet.
Although Reed admitted that he had not seen Thompson’s penis, a former secretary and bailiff of Thompson testified to having returned from an errand and entered the court through a side door, making it possible for her to see the offending organ. Two court reporters responsible for cleaning out Thompson’s chambers upon his 2004 retirement, stated that they had found lotion, adult magazines, a condom, Viagra, and disposable razors which prosecutors say were used by the justice in order to shave his scrotum during at least one of his trials.
Further raising the temperature on this already steamy trial are allegations that Thompson’s business partner Angela McClanahan appeared with him in four explicit photos seized from the judge’s office computer. A warrant for McClanahan’s arrest was issued after she failed to appear in court on Friday. When officers arrived t her home to apprehend her, she is said to have escaped out the back door and was lost during a foot chase.
Arrested last year, the 22-year-judicial veteran faces the possibility of as many as 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine for each felony count that results in a conviction and would be required to register as a sex offender. Additionally, his $88,000 annual pension will be revoked if he is found guilty.
