“We have no record of that case.”
This is the response you will receive if you were to visit the Woodward County Court Clerk’s office and ask for information regarding a felony lewd molestation case against Edwin Grant Dowty.
And if you were to look into the county’s computerized records system and look up Dowty’s name, where there were once pages of information about allegations of his inappropriate behavior with a female foster child under the age of 13, you will now find nothing.
Those records have been erased.
They were expunged through an “agreement in compliance with state law” under Title 22, Chapter 1, Section 18 of the Oklahoma Statutes, according to Woods County Assistant District Attorney Westline Ritter, who served as the state’s attorney on the case.
The charges against Dowty were previously dismissed as part of a deferred prosecution agreement in May, whereby the District Attorney’s Office would forgo prosecuting the case as long as Dowty met and followed certain conditions over the next six years.
These conditions were that Dowty must:
• be supervised by the Department of Corrections;
• attend individual counseling;
• provide a written letter of apology to the victim;
• have no contact with the victim;
• have limited contact with minor children;
• pay restitution to provide counseling for the victim; and
• pay separate restitution into a trust fund for the victim.
According to a previous interview with Ritter, Dowty has already written his letter of apology to the victim.
Following the dismissal of the case, Dowty’s attorney Bartlett A. Bouse applied to have Dowty’s record expunged. In the application for expungement, Bouse argued “that pursuant to 22 O.S. 18(4) all records including the court records and arrest records held by law enforcement agencies should be expunged and sealed as the charges were dismissed within one year of arrest.”
Although there is no record of it now, Ritter said “we filed an objection (to Dowty’s expungement application), because we though it exceeded the authority of the statutes.”
She did eventually sign an “agreed order” to allow for the complete expungement of Dowty’s records.
Dowty’s attorney then presented that order to Woodward County Associate District Judge Don Work in his chambers Monday afternoon at the time that a hearing to review the expungement application had been scheduled.
Because the agreement was accepted in chambers, details are not known. And Work, Bouse and Ritter all said they could not expound upon the deal.
“At this point, all I can tell you is that matter which was set was agreed to and resolved by agreement,” Work said.
The judge said he did not mean to exclude the press or public from the expungement hearing. Although a representative of The News was present at the courthouse at the time that the hearing had been scheduled, Work said he did not realize that anyone other than Dowty’s attorney was present to witness the outcome of the hearing.
“We really do try to do government in the sunshine; we really try to do things in the open,” Work said. “But we do a lot of things in chambers.”
However, Work also noted that “there is no reason … no particular reason” why the Dowty hearing was held in chambers instead of open court.
While most of the records have been removed, Ritter said the deferred prosecution agreement with Dowty does remain a public record and is available at the District Attorney’s office.
