Wagoner County Sheriff: Allegations Of Forged Records Are Untrue

The Wagoner County sheriff came out swinging over allegations he forged, or had someone else forge, some of his training records.

Someone told the Council on Law Enforcement, Education and Training that Sheriff Bob Colbert signed in for classes he then did not attend, or had someone sign his name, for classes he did not attend.

The sheriff denied the allegations and said he welcomes any state agency to look into his office and is mad because some of the media are reporting things he says are simply not true.

"Local reporters are showing up at the county commissioner meeting, telling the commissioners I am resigning. I am not resigning. I would ask you to get your facts straight before you tell people I'm resigning. I have no reason to resign. I'm not going to resign," he said.

Colbert said he's sick of people saying things about him that aren't true and he's done responding to old allegations that keep popping up even after OSBI and state auditors have cleared him.

He said he's never used county money for personal use, and as for the latest allegations about forging CLEET records OSBI is investigating, he said CLEET hasn't even given him details.

"No one has told us what date, what class, anything. But, people feel free to print in the media or say on TV about those allegations," Colbert said.

In the past, the sheriff said he believes political enemies and former disgruntled employees are behind the rounds of accusations.

He said they are unfounded and handed out copies of his training records.

"These are my training records. Anybody in this state, a sheriff, has anything close to this many hours. I'm above my hours and always have been," said Colbert.

He said he takes pride in expanding the sheriff's office, making it more professional and he's at his limit with what he sees as attacks meant to destroy the office.

"I'm going to be honest with you, this don't embarrass me, it pisses me off, and most of you who know me have never heard me talk this way," Colbert said.

The head of CLEET said they are not an investigative agency, which is why they asked OSBI to look into the allegations of record forging.

He said they are only interested in finding the truth and that if the allegations are not true, it's over, but if there's evidence records were forged, they'll turn it over to the local DA.

Colbert made the following statement in front of News On 6 cameras and other members of the media. The Wagoner Tribune transcribed his brief statement.

"Thank you all for being here. We've been hearing a lot of allegations. Local reporters showing up at the commissioner's meeting saying I'm resigning. I'd ask that you get your facts straight. No. 1 thing people are alleging, forged docs, absolutely did not happen. Most of you have given fair coverage, some of you haven't. We don't even know for sure what allegations are. CLEET shows up here springs stuff on us. They haven't told us what day, what class. To be honest with you, we've learned most of our stuff from [the media]. I'm going to be honest with you. This doesn't embarrass me, it pisses me off. It comes to an end today. These are all my training records, no sheriff in the state has close to his many hours. Attacks in the past, one of the things is I bought a battery, put it in my personal, no one found anything wrong with that. Media has no problem trying to make a fool of this office. At no time have I ever used county funds for personal use. Some of you are aware of the labor dispute. Every other year we're dealing with the same thing. I'm not going to make any more references to it. When these allegations were made before, I turned over my keys, didn't get them back until two or three weeks after."

Colbert did not take questions after making the statement, but he did provide his CLEET training records to the media. 

The head of CLEET says the organization only wants the truth, whatever that is.