JUDGE RESIGNS FROM BENCH!
LeSure Tells Governor She’ll Quit March 1; Appears To Be Part of Plea Deal; Her Arraignment Is March 2

Uncertainty On Status Of Her Husband

By W. ORLANDO PIERCE
Special to the Chronicle

Oklahoma County District Judge Tammy Bass LeSure submitted a succinct, two-sentence letter of resignation to the governor on Friday.
Apparently a part of a plea deal made with prosecutors, Judge LeSure told Gov. Mary Fallin in a letter that she would resign effective March 1, and thanked “the citizens for allowing me to serve my 13 years.”
The judge, her husband and another woman had been involved in a preliminary hearing that got underway last month.
The hearing was being held to determine if prosecutors had enough evidence to go to trial.
After four days of the hearing had elapsed (during which prosecutors indicated they would call as many as 20 witnesses), the hearing was interrupted when the defendants and prosecutors began to plea-bargain.
The 44-year-old judge was accused of giving twins she had adopted to her bailiff’s sister and of lying on adoption records.
Judge LeSure is facing nearly 40 felony counts of fraud, conspiracy and perjury.  Her husband, Karlos LeSure, 47, faces four felony charges.
Ravonda L. Edwards, the third defendant in last month’s preliminary hearing and the sister of the judge‘s bailiff, is facing six felony counts.
According to prosecutors, Mrs. Edwards raised the boy and girl even after the judge and her husband adopted them in 2010.
Witnesses said the children called Mrs. Edwards “Mommy” and called Judge LeSure their aunt.
Prosecutors also alleged that the judge misspent some of the funds provided her for the children’s care.
She and her husband lost their parental rights to the twins at a closed juvenile trial last year.
The now 4-year-old twins are now in foster care.
Judge LeSure is to be arraigned on March 2, and sources said she is likely to be sentenced at that hearing to probation.