A former Oklahoma sheriff was convicted of second-degree rape and bribery Saturday in a case that accused him of coercing sex from female inmates and drug court defendants.

A Major County jury convicted former Custer County Sheriff Mike Burgess on 13 felonies, including five counts of second-degree rape and three counts of bribery by a public official. He was acquitted of 23 other felony counts that included second-degree rape, forcible sodomy and rape by instrumentation.

The jury recommended Burgess serve 94 years in prison. He is to be sentenced March 24.

See also: Ex-Oklahoma Sheriff on Trial in Jail Sex Case

Prosecutors alleged Burgess, 56, used his position as a member of a team controlling a drug court in Custer County to sexually coerce defendants.

Burgess had pleaded not guilty and his attorney maintained the accusers were either lying or that the women consented to sex.

Under state law, an inmate cannot legally consent to sexual relations with a jailer or anyone else who controls the conditions of the prisoner’s confinement. Defense lawyer Steve Huddleston contended that drug court defendants were controlled by a judge, not Burgess.

“I didn’t think he was guilty of anything,” Huddleston said after the verdict. He said he expected Burgess would appeal the convictions.

Special prosecutor Mike Boring called the verdict important, saying: “This kind of action cannot be tolerated in our society.”

Burgess was convicted of rape charges involving two female drug court defendants, one of whom alleged he had sex with her on multiple, separate occasions at a motel. Burgess was convicted of sexually assaulting her in his car after arresting her on a drug court violation, but acquitted of the charges related to the motel incidents.

During the trial, Burgess’s stepdaughter, Jodi Stanley, had testified that he had neck surgery in mid-January 2007 and was limited physically during the week after. One of the women who claimed Burgess forced her to have sex had testified that Burgess went to her hotel room in Clinton asking for sex around that same period.

Several female offenders testified they feared they would be sent to prison if they did not provide sexual favors to Burgess. One woman testified she and Burgess had sex two to three times a week over 14 months.

Huddleston said the women were hoping a verdict against Burgess in criminal court would translate to a payday for them in a civil case.

The evidence against Burgess first surfaced in a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of 12 former jail inmates alleging sheriff’s employees had them engage in wet T-shirt contests and offered cigarettes to those who would flash their breasts.

The trial was moved from Custer County to Major County because of intense media coverage. Fairview is 73 miles from the Custer County seat of Arapaho and 120 miles northwest of Oklahoma City.

Opening statements began Tuesday for the trial of a former sheriff accused of using his influence over jail inmates and drug court defendants to demand sex from the women.

Former Custer County Sheriff Mike Burgess has pleaded not guilty to 36 charges of rape, rape by instrumentation, kidnapping, sexual battery and oral sodomy. He resigned in April.

Prosecutor Jim Swartz said six former jail inmates and drug court defendants will testify against Burgess, who faces up to 470 years in prison if convicted of all charges.

Swartz said that in one case Burgess asked a drug court defendant to meet him at an Oklahoma City motel. Swartz said she feared this would violate travel restrictions imposed by the court, but she agreed to it after Burgess told her: “I’m, the sheriff. I’ll take care of that.”

Defense attorney Steve Huddleston said during jury questioning that the backgrounds of the women making the accusations will be closely considered at trial.

Burgess, 56, was a member of a drug court panel that decided which offenders were allowed into a rehabilitation program and which were removed from the program and sent to prison.

Several female offenders testified at a preliminary hearing they feared they would be sent to prison if they did not provide sexual favors to Burgess. One woman testified she and Burgess had sex two to three times a week over a 14-month period.

Under state law, a prisoner cannot legally consent to sexual relations with a jailer or anyone else who controls the conditions of the prisoner’s confinement.

The evidence against Burgess surfaced in a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of 12 former jail inmates alleging sheriff’s employees had them engage in wet T-shirt contests and offered cigarettes to those who would flash their breasts.

Burgess, who is married, is free on $50,000 bail.

The trial was moved to Major County from Custer County because of intense media coverage. Fairview is 73 miles from the Custer County seat of Arapaho and 120 miles northwest of Oklahoma City.

I am going to start by saying I am neither a doctor nor biologist so there may be some other more specific problems with the following article but I ain’t smrt enough to pick up on it.

Apparently the folks at TheParanormalReport.com are reporting, Morgellons – New Disease, or Man-Made Weapon of Terror?, [queue scary music, dum dum dum]. Found via Disinformation. This kind of raises the alert level on my baloney-detector.

Morgellens allegedly is an unrecognized skin disease (like eczema) that contains some kind of mystery fibrous material that won’t “burn until it has been heated to 1700 degrees F”. Accepted medical diagnosis is actually delusional parasitosis a psychological disease in which the inflicted believe that there are bugs crawling under the skin.

This article goes way beyond simply detailing the symptoms of the disease. The author, Jim Swartz of The Conspiracy Journal, not only accepts the existence of the disease (as something real and not psychosomatic) but then postulates that it is actually a man-made bio-weapon that is “configured to receive specific tuned microwave, EMF and ELF signals and radio data.”

Again, I’m no scientist but the author then draws the following conclusion (under the section Morgellons and NanoMachines) that “[the fibers] have no eukaryotic cells, no cell membrane. Meaning that Morgellons is not a parasite, it is not biological, it is a machine.” Um… it’s a machine? That seems like kind of a leap.

The author continues with the obvious conclusion to this madness:

Other nanoconfigurations associated with Morgellons disease carry genetically-altered and spliced DNA or RNA. The nanomachines which precipitate Morgellons thrive in alkaline ph conditions and use the body’s bio-electric energy and other (unidentified) elements for power. There is evidence that certain of the tiny machines possess their own internal batteries as well. The Morgellons nanomachines are configured to receive specific tuned microwave, EMF and ELF signals and radio data.

At this point, why this is happening is anyone’s guess. We do know that Morgellons is commonly found in all body fluids, orifices and often even hair follicles, and are believed to routinely achieve total body systemic penetration.

If these findings are correct, and Morgellons is nanotechnology capable of taking over biological systems, the question remains whether or not these nanomachines were the result of an accident, or a deliberate release with the intention of infecting people for some unknown purpose.

It is almost as if Morgellons is in the process of reconstructing people into an entirely different life form; a cyborg-like creature, both biological and machine. As well, with the reports that the Morgellons nanomachines are capable of receiving radio signals, this could indicate that each infected person/system would be able to communicate with other Morgellon sufferers, creating the potential that each person would be like a single brain-cell of a larger, artificial intelligence.

Are we facing an invasion by machine intelligence, or is this a twisted attempt by some unknown group or government to achieve the ultimate control of humankind? Considering the current world situation, it would not be unreasonable to imagine that someone could stoop to such evil as releasing something such as Morgellons upon an unsuspecting planet. Sometimes the smallest thing can cause the biggest problems. We have to take a deeper look, beyond the affliction itself, before we will find any substantial answers.

Needless to say, or perhaps I do, there are those who disagree.

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say on it. And here’s what the Mayo Clinic has to say.
Here’s a link to a ABC Primetime show that was done on it.
The CDC is apparently going to convene a task force to investigate it.