GUTHRIE, Okla. — Logan County District Attorney Jeremiah Gregory is speaking out forcefully against what he described as a wave of misinformation surrounding a human trafficking operation and prostitution sting conducted in Guthrie. Gregory said that several press releases issued by organizations involved in the three-day law enforcement training and subsequent bust contained inaccuracies. He specifically targeted claims that the operation involved the rescue of human trafficking victims and that the men arrested had been accused of harboring or trafficking human beings. “The most noteworthy misinformation that has evolved is that these five charged individuals are accused of specifically harboring and trafficking actual human beings themselves, where women were captured and held,” Gregory said. He stressed that the operation, while connected to broader anti-trafficking efforts, did not involve any actual human victims.
The controversy stems from a multi-agency law enforcement training exercise that culminated in a sting operation at a Guthrie hotel. The Guthrie Police Department (GPD) was among the agencies participating. During the sting, law enforcement arrested Carlos Rubio De Santiago, Kenneth Blevins, Victor Najera, Elwyn Patmon, and Johnny Goforth on complaints of solicitation and violations of the Oklahoma Computer Crimes Act. According to Gregory, the five men were arrested after responding to fake online advertisements for prostitution services. The ads invited solicitors to come to a hotel room, where officers were waiting. Gregory explained that the only parties involved in this solicitation case were the five defendants and the law enforcement officers at the hotel. There were no traffickers, no captive victims, and no evidence that the respondents had been involved in harboring or exploiting real persons.
Gregory was particularly critical of the assertion that the operation had rescued potential victims of human trafficking. The Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office had issued a press release on Monday stating that 15 potential victims were rescued during the bust. That statement, Gregory said, is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. He said he confirmed with the Guthrie Police Department that the alleged “15 potential victims” were actually profiles on the internet created to teach training participants how to use open-source information to identify possible victims of human trafficking. “Law enforcement never made in-person contact with any of these fifteen individuals,” Gregory said. “The public has been led to believe these ‘15 potential victims’ were found at this hotel. This is patently false.” He made clear that no actual individuals connected to those profiles were recovered, rescued, or interviewed, and that the training profiles were never physically present at the hotel.
Gregory also addressed another aspect of the misinformation: the claim that the operation involved rescuing women who had been captured and held against their will. He said this was simply not what happened. The only other people involved in the operation, beyond law enforcement and the five men arrested, were three women who were contacted by training participants to discuss services available. Those three women did not engage in prostitution, and law enforcement determined that they were not victims of sex trafficking. Gregory noted that human trafficking is a heinous and reprehensible crime that he takes extremely seriously. He made it clear that this particular solicitation sting operation was not a human trafficking rescue mission, and he warned that the public deserves better accuracy from press releases intended to highlight criminal justice efforts.
The distinction matters, Gregory said, because overstating what law enforcement has accomplished can undermine trust in the justice system and harm legitimate anti-trafficking efforts. When agencies claim that “15 potential victims were recovered” or that defendants are accused of harboring human beings, the public understandably becomes alarmed and outraged. Such claims also distort the criminal cases themselves. The five men currently face charges related to solicitation and violations of the Computer Crimes Act—not human trafficking or forced labor. Gregory’s office will be prosecuting those charges. By correcting the record, he said he hopes to ensure that the defendants’ legal proceedings, and the public’s understanding of them, are based on facts rather than emotional, inaccurate narratives.
In his closing remarks, Gregory said he could not remain silent while misinformation continued to circulate in the Logan County community. “The public deserves the whole truth and nothing but the truth from their elected officials, and I cannot sit idly by and permit this aggrandizing misinformation to continue circulating in our community,” he said. He thanked the law enforcement officers involved in the training and in the sting operation for their work, while also emphasizing the importance of transparency and honesty in all official communications. As the case moves forward, Gregory said, his office will focus on ensuring justice is served in the cases against the five men already arrested. For the community, the incident serves as a reminder that not every law enforcement operation is exactly what it appears to be in press releases—and that even in the fight against a devastating crime like human trafficking, accuracy must never be sacrificed.
