As it turns out, the legal issues Oklahoma State’s Devon Thomas found himself facing late last month wasn’t his first serious brush with law enforcement.
Citing juvenile records released Tuesday, Tulsa World is reporting that the incoming freshman running back was charged with distribution of child pornography just prior to his junior year of high school. From the World:Thomas, just prior to the beginning of his junior year of high school, showed friends videos he had recorded on his cell phone of himself having sex with a “girl under the age of 18,” according to the records. ... He was considered a very low risk for recidivism, his intake report stated.
According to the recommendations in the report, Thomas was sentenced to probation that including receiving intensive outpatient sex offender specific treatment and to have no unsupervised access to a phone or computer and to have no access to any form of pornography. Thomas’ counselor reported three months later that Thomas was making “excellent progress” and that he had “complied with everything asked of him.”
The case was closed March 14, 2013, over the state’s objections.
As a result of the charge, Thomas was suspended for the first four games of his junior season.
Court documents also showed, the paper writes, that Thomas “had been referred to juvenile court... once before [the child porn charge], on July 6, 2011, on an allegation of an assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. Prosecutors ultimately declined to file a charge on that allegation.”
In other words, Thomas has now had three significant legal issues in a span of three years, with the third being...
In late May, Thomas was initially arrested on a pair of felony complaints — armed robbery and shooting with intent to kill — following what appears to be a drug deal gone horribly awry. It was subsequently reported that three additional felony complaints were filed against Thomas: kidnapping, first-degree burglary and conspiracy to commit a felony.
Four other males — two 18 years of age, two 17 – were arrested on similar complaints.
All five of the felony charges the 18-year-old Thomas is facing stems from an incident that occurred Tuesday afternoon. From reports:Thomas, 18, and four others are accused of breaking into a residence, forcing a person inside into a bedroom and threatening to shoot him or her, and then waiting for an acquaintance to arrive so they could rob him, Cooper said.
When the second person arrived, the intruders at gunpoint stole his marijuana, money, shoes and clothing and instructed him to leave because they were going to “bust a cap,” the robbery victim told police. After the victim got into his vehicle, one of the robbers fired at least one round that went through the vehicle’s rear windshield and nicked the driver’s head rest, according to Thomas’ arrest report. The bullet narrowly missed the driver, the report states.
One of the alleged victims claimed he has known the suspects for several years and that it was Thomas who was brandishing the gun. Thomas, who has denied the charges but has yet to make a formal plea, was released on a $190,000 bond four days after his arrest.
Thomas, an early enrollee, was a three-star member of the Cowboys’ 2014 recruiting class, rated as the No. 30 running back in the country by Rivals.com. The Broken Arrow, Okla., product also held offers from, among others, Oklahoma, Clemson and West Virginia.
The school has yet to comment on what if any future Thomas has with the Cowboys. As of this posting, however, Thomas remains listed on OSU’s official roster.