TULSA, Okla. — According to California Court Records a Tulsa man who was caught with a Tulsa teen in California was released from jail after pleading guilty to sex crimes.
Christopher Bartley previously was charged in Tulsa County in July for running off with the same teen.
“The thing that is most disappointing to me is we had a warrant out for his arrest with a request to extradite back to Oklahoma and he walked out of that jail, and I do not have an answer for that,” said Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler.
After his first arrest Bartley failed to show up to his court date for the crimes involving the same Tulsa teen and a bench warrant was issued out on a national database, according to the Tulsa County District Attorney’s Office. That same day he was found with the same Tulsa teen by Newport Beach Police in California and booked into the Orange County Jail on sex charges.
Wednesday, he plead guilty in Orange County, California to unlawful sex with a teen under the age of 18 and another sex crime. According to California court records he was sentenced to 42 days and 1 years’ probation, then released for time served though it was not the full 42 days.
“If they would have held him for each day that he was ordered to have served he would still be out there in jail,” said Kunzweiler. “In short order they plead him out him out to what appears to be misdemeanor crimes and gave him credit for time served and then didn’t abide by our warrant to hold him.”
Kunzweiler said he is does not know why Bartley was released even though he still has a felony warrant out of Tulsa County for not showing up to court after running off with the teen the first time.
“I do not know how that would not have been picked up in a California jail. They may have a totally different protocol, maybe they want to get their people out of jail and not want to check on if other states want to hold him accountable. We certainly want to know where he is at,”: said Kunzweiler. “It seems to me that if you are going to charge somebody with serious child sex crimes you are not going to turn around in a matter of 30 something days and pitch it as a misdemeanor without this going through several levels of administrators and that’s why I have a call out to the DA out there.”
FOX23 called the records division in the jail and was told he was released and did not have any warrants to be held on. FOX23 also emailed nearly all the public defenders listed on his case and left messages with the Orange County District Attorneys Office but did not receive a response back.
Kunzweiler said, “I got to hope that a police officer somewhere runs across him and runs his record. hopefully that warrant will show up on his criminal records check.”
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