Tulsa World reports:
Former state Sen. Ralph Shortey has agreed to plead guilty to a child sex trafficking offense for offering to pay a 17-year-old boy for sexual “stuff” last March. In exchange for his guilty plea, federal prosecutors have agreed to drop three child pornography counts against him.
A jury trial for Shorty had been set to begin Dec. 5 in Oklahoma City federal court. He is now scheduled to plead guilty Nov. 30 instead. By making a deal, Shortey, 35, hopes to avoid being locked up for nearly the rest of his life. Still, he will be required to serve at least a 10-year prison term, the mandatory minimum time for child sex trafficking.
If you missed the lurid backstory to Shortey’s arrest, my earlier posts are here.
RELATED: During his tenure in the state Senate, Shortey was infamous for filing bizarre bills, among them a proposed ban on human fetuses in food products and an ordinance authorizing homeowners to shoot down drones.
Shortey also authored numerous anti-immigrant bills, including one that would deny US citizenship to babies born of undocumented parents. Additionally, he sponsored many items on the threat of electronic pulse attacks, a longtime topic in the fever swamps at InfoWars.
The head of Equality Oklahoma notes that Shortey once promised him that he would leave the Senate chamber during a vote on an anti-transgender bill, but Shortey appeared at his desk and voted for it anyway. Shortey was the state Trump campaign chairman during the GOP primary.