Read together, two grand jury reports provide the fullest public account yet of how Sara Polston’s early release unfolded and why jurors concluded political favoritism influenced her path through Oklahoma’s correctional system.
OKLAHOMA CITY – The supplemental multicounty grand jury report, made public after the June 16 primary election, did not accuse Gov. Kevin Stitt of a crime. Instead, it added another piece to a timeline that jurors say helps explain why Sara Polston received preferential treatment after entering Oklahoma’s correctional system.
Polston, the wife of Norman attorney and Stitt friend Rod Polston, pleaded guilty to causing a 2023 drunken-driving crash in Norman that left a young woman with life-altering brain injuries. She was released to the Department of Corrections’ GPS monitoring program after serving 73 days of an eight-year prison sentence.
The original grand jury report identifies the Polstons as close personal friends of the governor. Campaign finance records also show they contributed to Stitt’s campaigns and hosted a campaign fundraiser at their Norman home in 2022.
The four-page supplemental report fills in a gap left by the grand jury’s original investigation. When jurors issued their first report in May, they noted they had subpoenaed Rod Polston’s phone records from Verizon but had not received them in time to include them in their findings. The supplemental report contains those records and compares them with events already documented during the investigation.
The grand jury carefully distinguished what those records show from what they do not.
Jurors wrote that “this new information does not prove any criminal wrongdoing on the part of Governor Stitt.” But they also said the records “corroborate our previously reported findings and deepen our concerns regarding DOC’s GPS Program and political favoritism surrounding Sara Polston’s transfer.”
That distinction defines both reports.
A pattern, not a single event
The supplemental report documents 16 telephone calls placed by Stitt to Rod Polston after Sara Polston pleaded guilty on Oct. 1, 2025. Before then, jurors found no calls between the governor and Rod Polston from April 24 through Nov. 6, 2025. After Sara Polston was released from prison, the calls also stopped, with no additional contacts identified after Feb. 25, 2026.
The supplemental report does not speculate about the substance of those conversations. Instead, it focuses on when the calls occurred.
Among them:
- Calls began shortly after the Department of Corrections started preparing Sara Polston’s presentence investigation.
- Additional calls occurred immediately after she was sentenced and remanded to the Cleveland County Jail.
- Calls on Dec. 8 coincided with discussions between Rod and Sara Polston about moving her into Department of Corrections custody that day.
- Several lengthy calls took place while DOC officials reviewed Sara Polston’s application for placement in the department’s GPS monitoring program.
- On Feb. 11, Stitt called Rod Polston roughly two hours before DOC approved Sara Polston for GPS placement.
- The final recorded call came several days after Sara Polston was released from prison.
Standing alone, none of those events establishes wrongdoing.
Taken together, jurors said, the sequence reinforced concerns they had already reached through witness interviews, jail recordings and Department of Corrections records.
The broader investigation
Focusing only on the governor’s phone calls risks missing the larger point of the grand jury’s work.
The original 17-page report examined how Oklahoma’s correctional system handled one inmate’s case.
Jurors concluded Sara Polston received preferential treatment, citing accommodations and administrative attention they described as inconsistent with ordinary procedures.
The report detailed expedited transportation from the Cleveland County Jail into Department of Corrections custody, unusually rapid movement through the prison system, early consideration for GPS placement and repeated contacts involving senior state officials.
The panel also criticized the operation of the Department of Corrections’ GPS monitoring program itself, concluding it lacked sufficient safeguards, transparency and victim notification.
Ultimately, the report described the program as “indefensible” and said the case demonstrated “political favoritism.”
The political backdrop
The reports unfolded against the backdrop of a long-running political and legal feud between Stitt and Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who have repeatedly clashed over major policy and legal disputes during the governor’s second term.
The multicounty grand jury operates under judicial supervision but is assisted by prosecutors from the Attorney General’s Office.
After the original report was released in May, Stitt accused Drummond of using the investigation for political purposes and denied intervening on Sara Polston’s behalf.
After the supplemental report became public, Stitt again rejected suggestions that he influenced Sara Polston’s release, saying Oklahoma’s governor cannot unilaterally release an inmate from prison or grant a pardon. He called the renewed attention to the case “an election-year attack” and accused Drummond of attempting to influence voters in the gubernatorial race.
The supplemental report was filed June 11 and, at the grand jury’s request, remained under seal until after the June 16 primary election. Neither the report nor the footnote requesting the seal explains why jurors sought to delay its public release.
Looking at both reports together
The supplemental report does not fundamentally change the Sara Polston investigation. Instead, it completes the public record assembled by the grand jury.
The first report relied on interviews, jail recordings, Department of Corrections records and witness testimony to conclude Sara Polston received preferential treatment within Oklahoma’s correctional system.
The second adds telephone records that jurors say fit within that chronology.
Read together, the two reports provide a more complete account of how Sara Polston moved from sentencing to release. The grand jury’s central conclusion, however, did not change: the supplemental phone records reinforced concerns the panel had already identified in its original investigation.
Ultimately, the grand jury’s concern was not any single phone call. It was the sequence of events—and what jurors believed that sequence revealed about how Oklahoma’s prison release system worked when a well-connected inmate entered it.
