Inset left: Aaron Oldham (Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office). Inset right: Christine Hillier (Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office). Background: Oklahoma County Detention Center (Google Maps).
A man in Oklahoma is accused of pretending to be an attorney at the local jail so that he could speak with his girlfriend, who was locked up in the facility.
On Monday, Aaron Oldham, 41, arrived at the Oklahoma County Detention Center in Oklahoma City, “attempting to get power of attorney paperwork signed for his girlfriend” — 41-year-old Christine Hillier, according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by Law&Crime. He is said to have approached the facility’s visitation center and inquired about the inmate, “portraying himself as Hillier’s attorney.”
He “referred to Hillier as his client and stated, ‘We are trained in patients,’ referring to his legal training,” the affidavit adds.
His access was granted, and he entered the attorney visitation booth and was soon met by Hillier. They “both filled out the power of attorney paperwork.”
If something didn’t feel awry for staff yet, it likely did in the subsequent moments, as Oldham and Hillier are said to have begun “hugging and kissing.”
Jail records show Hillier was booked into the detention center a week before, on Oct. 6. She was reportedly arrested on a warrant out of Nevada.
Love true crime? Sign up for our newsletter, The Law&Crime Docket, to get the latest real-life crime stories delivered right to your inbox.
After their meeting, Oldham left the jail, but he was later arrested for false personation when investigators said they realized he didn’t have a license to practice law. He allegedly “stated that he understood why he was being arrested but he believed he had attorney client privilege with his girlfriend.”
Court records show an affidavit of probable cause was filed against him on Tuesday.
However, he claimed the situation was a “misunderstanding.”
“It’s a silly misunderstanding, and I will never interact with that system again, hopefully,” Oldham told local NBC affiliate KFOR. “I’m a very law-abiding person. … I trust the U.S. legal system.”
Local defense attorney Ed Blau told the TV station that he has visited the jail hundreds of times in his career and “I’ve never seen a situation where somebody out of the blue showed up and pretended to either be a bonds person or an attorney.”
Authorities attributed the apparent mix-up to a mistake from a staffer and a lack of funding.
The Oklahoma County Detention Center said in a statement that “an individual recently presented himself at the jail claiming to be an attorney in order to visit an inmate. A staff member did not follow established verification procedures, allowing the individual access.”
“Once the breach was discovered, investigators obtained a warrant, and the individual was arrested at a residence in Oklahoma City,” the statement added. “The staff member involved has been disciplined, and all staff assigned to the attorney visitation area have received retraining to reinforce our existing policies and prevent this from happening again.”
