Former Mayes County deputy Brett Mull is pictured in this photograph from 2004, when he was a Cherokee Marshal, alongside his K-9 partner. Courtesy/CHEROKEE PHOENIX
The former head of the Mayes County Sheriff’s Office’s drug interdiction team pleaded guilty on Wednesday to stealing methamphetamine that had been seized by investigators during numerous investigations, according to U.S. Attorney Trent Shores.
Brett Alan Mull, 48, of Pryor, pleaded guilty to one felony count of tampering with or destruction of evidence and one count of acquiring controlled, dangerous substances by misrepresentation, fraud, forgery or deception, according to a media release from Shores’s office.
Mull was originally charged in federal court on Oct. 11, 2018, after investigators discovered evidence envelopes in Mull’s residence that had contained meth seized during Mayes County drug interdiction operations that were supposed to have been submitted to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation for testing, the media release stated. According to prosecutors, Mull admitted to investigators that he had removed the evidence from the Criminal Investigations Unit, which he supervised, for his own personal use. He was later indicted by a federal grand jury in November.
Last October, The Frontier reported that the charges facing Mull were not the first accusations against him for allegedly using meth. In 2004, Mull was suspended from his job as a K-9 handler for the Cherokee Nation Marshal’s Service after allegedly testing positive for meth.
Afterward, Mull was hired by the Mayes County Sheriff’s Office. After Mull left the office for a brief stint in 2014 and returned in 2015, Mayes County Sheriff Mike Reed said he was told by R. Brian Surber, first assistant district attorney for Rogers, Mayes and Craig counties and a former Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics Agent, that meth had showed up in Mull’s system during the 2004 test because he had helped dismantle a working meth lab. Experts, however, disagreed that the amount of meth found in Mull’s system could be attributed to secondhand exposure to chemicals from a lab.
During a hearing Wednesday, Mull admitted to removing evidence envelopes containing methamphetamine before they were booked into the property room during his time as supervisor of the narcotics unit, Shores said. In his plea agreement, Mull also admitted to stealing the drug to support his methamphetamine addiction.
Mull remains released on bond pending his sentencing July 3.
“Law enforcement officers should inspire trust and confidence in the communities they serve and protect,” Shores said. “Former Mayes County Deputy Brett Mull violated that trust when he abused his position to obtain and use methamphetamine that had been collected as evidence during drug investigations. Now he will face the consequences of his choices.”
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