(Editor’s note: This story includes descriptions of groping and other allegedly inappropriate behavior reported by minors.)
Nearly three years after the first of several former students accused him of inappropriate touching at school between 2022 and 2024, a teacher and former police chief in Arkoma has been charged with eight felony counts of lewd or indecent acts to a child under 16.
LeFlore County Court records show Thomas Lenard was charged June 26 by LeFlore County District Attorney Kevin Merritt and booked into the LeFlore County Jail the same day. He posted a $200,000 bond with conditions of having no contact with minors, staying away from schools and avoiding the internet.
Lenard, 52, faces up to 20 years in prison for each felony offense if convicted.
In a Facebook post four days before he was charged, Lenard denied the allegations, claiming the currently suspended Assistant Police Chief Mallory Speaks, whom he said he wouldn’t hire as an officer when he was interim chief in 2022, coached the victims into making the allegations against him. According to Speaks’ LinkedIn profile, she worked as a special education teacher for Arkoma Public Schools from August 2022 until May 2024.
“In April 2023, Mallory told students and teachers that I was a ‘pedo,’ a pervert, I liked to touch young girls, and that I was being investigated. I have statements,” Lenard wrote June 22. “This was BEFORE I was investigated. I made a report to the mayor, city administrator, and a phone call to Chief (Michael) Ivy, who was away do (sic) to his mother’s health at the time. Nothing got done about my complaint. Nobody from the police department even talked to the two teachers who made a statement to the school. Since then, she has been hired full-time, and even promoted multiple times.”
In a press release announcing Lenard’s arrest, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said its inquiry into Lenard began in 2023 after a student alleged he made inappropriate contact with them. Forensic interviews were conducted with several students in the months that followed.
With multiple female students reporting their experiences during August 2024 interviews at the LeFlore County Child Advocacy Center, it is unclear why Lenard avoided arrest and prosecution over the past 22 months. In its press release, however, OSBI said Lenard was placed on administrative leave from Arkoma Public Schools following the allegations. Lenard said in his Facebook post he resigned from the district in January.
During the investigation, OSBI agents learned Lenard previously served as chief of the Arkoma Police Department before becoming a teacher. He also previously worked for the District 16 DA’s Office as an investigator.
The LeFlore County town of Arkoma borders Arkansas, and Lenard served as its police chief for 17 years until his retirement in 2021. Even after he began working for Arkoma Public Schools, Lenard retained his law enforcement certification and was temporarily appointed interim chief of the department after all members of the force resigned Sept. 7, 2022. Records from the Oklahoma State Department of Education show Lenard was granted teaching certificates in driver education and history in May 2024. His certificates are currently suspended. He had been employed by the school district as a human resources officer prior to becoming a teacher, according to the Poteau Daily News.
Lenard said in his Facebook post that he has no desire to step back into a classroom “but the Facebook claims has made sure of that not happening anyways.”
“I will not voluntarily surrender my teaching certificate because I will not show any sign of being guilty,” Lenard said. “I have attorneys ready to fight at any level.”
‘The first time Lenard touched her was at a school dance’
According to affidavits written by OSBI Special Agent Christian Goode and Leflore County District Attorney’s Office investigator Michael Oliver, Arkoma Police Chief Michael Ivy requested assistance with the allegations against Lenard in November 2023, who at the time worked as both a school resource officer and an instructor for the district’s archery program. (Ivy and Speaks were placed on administrative leave last week after the town’s board of trustees received a list of undisclosed grievances against the pair.)
Investigators allege that a 12-year-old student first reported to an Arkoma Public Schools counselor in September 2023 that Lenard had made her uncomfortable by rubbing his hand down her back and touching her buttocks. During a forensic interview, the student described multiple incidents that allegedly occurred while participating in the school’s archery program.
Lenard suggested in his Facebook post that Speaks had influenced the student’s allegation.
“That student was with me immediately after lunch, and was with Mallory immediately before lunch. It was also a special ed student,” Lenard wrote. “Michael Ivy took the initial report but passed it off to the DA office to reassign it because of conflict of interest. The DA eventually gave it to OSBI Agent Goode. Agent Goode talked to anyone that was willing to make a complaint against me after that. Five more girls made accusations and all but one were special ed students.”
The affidavits confirm that investigators subsequently conducted forensic interviews with five additional female students under the age of 16, each of whom described similar encounters and alleged inappropriate touching by Lenard. The students all reported similar behaviors, saying Lenard rubbed students’ knees and thighs, touched or slapped their buttocks, brushed his hand across a student’s breast and inappropriately touched students during archery practice and in his classroom. The alleged incidents occurred during the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years.
One student told investigators Lenard touched her on multiple occasions.
“The first time Lenard touched her was at a school dance, where he invited her to dance, and then touched her buttocks. This was two school years (ago) at the winter formal in February or March. Lenard would also touch her during archery practice on her sides,” Oliver’s affidavit states.
The incidents occurred when the student was in eighth and ninth grade, according to Oliver’s affidavit. Asked if the student ever said anything to Lenard about the touching, the student “disclosed that she was too scared and had never told her to stop,” Oliver wrote.
The same student described two of her peers — who were not among the girls interviewed by investigators — confiding in her that Lenard had asked them to jump up and down so that, in the students’ belief, their breasts would move.
The student’s 12-year-old sister said Lenard would look down her shirt and “would have his phone up like he was photographing or videoing down her shirt,” Oliver wrote.
Another student described seeing Lenard staring at her classmates in inappropriate manners. She reported that Lenard would often let the girls in his class play Just Dance, a video game where participants perform choreographed dance moves, and that he would stare in ways that concerned her. The student disclosed seeing Lenard touch her classmates inappropriately and reported one of her classmates confided that Lenard had touched her breast.
Lenard claims his attorney spoke with Goode and was told a report was being turned into the district attorney’s office for review with no probable cause affidavit included.
“This means he did not believe there was enough evidence for an arrest. Goode also told my attorney that the other girls complaints happened in my classroom in front of all the students. (The superintendent of the school told me that No parent or student ever made a complaint against me to the school.) Sometime after that Mallory and the DA investigator took over the investigation,” Lenard wrote June 22. “This led to a search warrant on my house in August 2024. This was a SWAT team operation pointing guns at me and my wife. It also included federal special computer investigators. They told me that they took my cell phone, a personal computer and some flash drives. They still did not arrest me. I know there was nothing illegal there. I find it disturbing that Mallory was with some of these alleged victims to be interviewed. She put it in their head that I was a pedophile, and got to support them to testify. Did she get to coach them also?”
Agents attempted to interview Lenard during the investigation, but he declined to speak with investigators, according to the affidavits.
“I have not provided each and every act known in the case, simply what I feel are needed to provide a finding of probable cause,” Oliver wrote.
The investigators also asked the students about rumors that Lenard had attempted to add them as friends on Facebook, which some students affirmed.
“The statements contained in this affidavit are based in part on: information provided by other agencies, written reports about this and other investigations that I have received, directly or indirectly, from other law enforcement agents; independent investigation; and my experience, training, and background as a special agent with the OSBI,” Goode wrote. “Because this affidavit is being submitted for the limited purpose of establishing probable cause to believe that Thomas Lenard, committed the below-described offense, I have not included every detail of the investigation. In addition, unless otherwise indicated, all statements contained in this affidavit are summaries in substance and in part.”
