Just this year, a rape prosecutor lied about her own rape; the district attorney was stabbed by his own daughter; and he also prosecuted a defense attorney for raping his girlfriend when she drove to a restaurant at the time she was supposed to have been drugged
On May 2nd, 2022, in dramatic testimony at the Tulsa courthouse, Tulsa’s Assistant District Attorney Ashley Swindell Nix, who routinely prosecuted rape and domestic abuse cases, admitted under cross examination that she had tried to fabricate her own sexual assault because she was worried of being disciplined for sexual indiscretions with her supervisors (plural) at the Tulsa County District Attorney (DA)’s Office.
A graduate of the University of Tulsa law school, Nix had claimed to have been unconscious during her alleged assault, but admitted that she drank too much but was in fact conscious.
According to rumor, Nix may have even had sex with the lead detective in the case, Darin Ehrenreich, of the Tulsa Police Department.
Nix, however, has faced no reprimand for her conduct and continues to maintain her position as an assistant district attorney and rape prosecutor.
Nix’s boss, Steve Kunzweiler, 60, was featured in the local news in late September 2022 when he was stabbed at his home in a luxury Tulsa neighborhood by his daughter, Jennifer, 30.
Jennifer was subsequently charged with assault and battery with a deadly weapon and threatening a violent act—with Steve refusing to drop the charges.
Steve told investigators that his daughter had suffered from a mental illness for years and had recently said she had “dark thoughts.”
The day of the attack, Kunzweiler said he was mowing the yard when his daughter came up to him and said she needed to kill him, an affidavit reads. “Jennifer had a large knife in her hand and proceeded to stab the victim in the ribs and upper portion of the right arm. A struggle ensued and the victim was able to disarm Jennifer.”
Graduating from the University of Tulsa law school in 1988, Kunzweiler is a Republican who has emphasized his commitment to public safety in his campaign brochures.
While supporting alternatives to incarceration for some categories of non-violent offenders, Kunzweiler has pushed for the death penalty in a number of cases—including that of a man, David Ware, convicted of killing a Tulsa police officer—and prides himself on his successful prosecution of a reserve Tulsa County Deputy, Robert Bates, who shot a man while he was being arrested in a case that helped bring down Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz.
While it is possible that Kunzweiler is an innocent victim, it is also possible that he was an abusive father: it is very rare for a chld—even one who may suffer from personality disorder or mental illness—to stab their own parent unless they suffered from abuse at his hands.
There could also be other motives at play.
After the incident, Kunzweiler attempted to do damage control by presenting himself as a champion of public health programs that could have potentially helped his daughter, though his party is the one that has consistently defunded these programs over decades.
Kunzweiler’s office has been behind the prosecution of Tulsa defense attorney Jeffrey Krigel for allegedly raping his girlfriend after drugging her—though the girlfriend has acknowledged the existence of text messages which point to her having driven with Mr. Krigel to a restaurant after the alleged drugging.
The same girlfriend in court testimony claims not to have remembered what happened during the night she was allegedly raped—meaning she does not herself know if she was raped.
Since no rape kit was ever taken; there is no physical evidence to implicate Mr. Krigel.
The prosecution seems more to have to do with the fact that Mr. Krigel has functioned as a thorn on the side of the DA’s office for a number of years.
The arresting officer in Krigel’s case, Darin Ehrenrich of the TPD’s Special Victims Unit, charged that Krigel was a serial rapist and that several of the assaults occurred while the women—whom Krigel was mostly in relationships with—were unconscious.
However, an unconscious woman cannot drive to a restaurant and there was not enough evidence to prosecute Krigel for any other case but one.
One of the accusers is Krigel’s ex-wife, Stephanie Duran, a well connected lawyer who previously worked in the DA’s office.
She only reported being raped five years after their divorce—when she said nothing during a long prior custody dispute.
According to Krigel, Ms. Duran has tried to orchestrate a scheme to kidnap his eight-year old daughter, by colluding with all his ex-girlfriends and is trying to use her connections to have him imprisoned for most of the rest of his life.
Whether true or not, the case against Mr. Krigel appears to be laughably weak and could only be prosecuted in a banana republic like Tulsa County.
