Former Okay teacher bound over for trial on molestation charge

Jan. 12—A former Okay High School teacher will face trial on charges of lewd molestation, after a judge ruled the state presented sufficient evidence to proceed.

Special District Judge Robin Adair Thursday that Travis Gene Sloat, 41, can be charged with "unlawfully, willfully, knowingly and wrongfully commit[ting] the crime of lewd molestation" against an 18-year-old who was a minor at the time, and a former friend of Sloat's daughter.

The affidavit in the court records accuses Sloat of "setting up his phone to record the said victim while she was in the bathroom when she was under the age of 16."

The woman, who appeared in court Thursday, was asked by Muskogee County District Attorney Larry Edwards to describe, in her words, what happened.

"I wanted to take a shower and I asked [Sloat's daughter] and she told me I had to ask her parents," she said. "So I asked [Sloat's wife] and she said to ask him because he had just got back from hunting."

The woman said she had to use the master bathroom in the house because the kids' bathroom was being remodeled.

"He said, 'Yes, but let me use the restroom first,'" the woman testified.

The woman said she sat with Sloat's son for about 10 minutes, playing video games, until Sloat returned. He told her she could go take a shower. She said she went to use the bathroom, and Edwards asked if she had "disrobed in any fashion."

"My bottom half, yes," she said.

Edwards then asked if she noticed anything when she sat on the toilet.

"Whenever I went to grab the toilet paper, I seen his phone against a pile of laundry pointing towards me," she said. "It was recording so I picked it up and stopped the recording. I asked [Sloat's daughter] for the password for the phone, then she texted it to me, so I deleted the video."

The woman said after she deleted the video, she went to recently deleted files to remove it completely.

"Then I watched it because I had a bad feeling," she said. "In the first part, you can see Travis turn the camera around and set it at an angle toward the toilet, then the light goes off whenever he walked out of the bathroom, then you can see me using the bathroom."

Edwards asked if she watched the full video, and she said she did.

"Did you do anything to preserve that?" he asked.

"Before [Sloat's daughter] came in to get his phone for him, she texted me to tell me she was coming to get it," the woman said. "So I took a quick video of it off of my phone — like scanned through it."

Defense attorney Matt Price, representing Sloat, asked the woman under cross-examination how the video was being recorded, and she said it was just the camera app that came with the phone.

"So this isn't like a Facebook livestream that has someone viewing it on the other end?" Price asked, to which the woman said no.

"So to look at the video, you have to do what you did and clicking on the video from the photo gallery?" Price asked.

After the woman said that's what she did, Price wanted confirmation that she went to the recently deleted files and made her own recording.

"Your own recording was not a full recording of this," Price said. "It would be fair to say the recording that you made is you flipping through, using your finger to scan through. Can you really see much that your scanning through on the video that you made?"

The woman answered no, then told Price she completely deleted the video from Sloat's phone.

After the state rested its case, Price offered a specific demurrer objecting to the charge of lewd molestation, bringing up several jury instructions or various elements the state can pursue.

"I believe the one the state is trying to go after is the defendant knowingly and intentionally looked upon the private parts of a child under 16 years of age and older than 3 years of age," he said. "During the testimony that the state has put on ... there was a video and a camera app that was not a livestream. Nobody was viewing it on any end; you have to access this video the way [the victim] said she accessed it.

"By the state's own evidence, there is nothing to show that Mr. Sloat looked upon or had the ability to look upon anything," Price said.

He asked the court to reconsider the charge because Sloat could not have completed the act of lewd molestation because the alleged video was deleted before he could view it.

Adair overruled the demurrer and scheduled Sloat's next court appearance for Feb. 15.