Sallisaw

One Year Later, Still No Trial: How The Sequoyah County Assessor Crisis Lost $332 Million of Taxable Revenue

Brandy Dobbs (now Allen)

County assessor remains on the job despite removal charges as school losses mount, compliance failures continue, and a jury trial scheduled over a year ago still has no date

It's been exactly one year since Brandy Dobbs (now Brandy Allen) was supposed to face a jury.

On May 5, 2025, the Sequoyah County Assessor was scheduled to stand trial in Muskogee County District Court on accusations that her "willful maladministration" had made Sequoyah County the only non-compliant jurisdiction in Oklahoma, cost schools $400,000, and wiped $332 million off the county's tax rolls.

The trial never happened. It was postponed—again—with a vague promise of a "spring 2026" date in Adair County.

That was a year ago. There's still no trial date. And Brandy Dobbs is still on the job.

Meanwhile, Sequoyah County remains Oklahoma's only county classified as both Level One and Level Two non-compliant by the State Board of Equalization. Schools continue to lose hundreds of thousands in state aid. Property assessments remain systemically flawed. And taxpayers are left wondering: Why has nothing been done?

The Crisis That Won't End

Out of Oklahoma's 77 counties, Sequoyah County stands completely alone in its compliance failures. While every other county in the state—from wealthy Tulsa County to tiny Cimarron County on the Panhandle—manages to meet basic property assessment requirements, Sequoyah County can't.

Or won't.

The numbers are staggering: $332 million in lost taxable value. $400,000 stripped from school budgets in 2024 and 2025. And now, as we approach summer 2026, there's every indication those school funding shortfalls will continue into this year's budget cycle because nothing has fundamentally changed.

The Warning Signs

The trouble became public on August 12, 2024, when Sequoyah County Commissioners convened a 97-minute executive session to discuss Dobbs' employment. About 20 people waited anxiously in the outer office as the door opened and closed five times, heads turning with each potential revelation.

When the session finally ended, District 3 Commissioner Jim Rogers tried to strike a conciliatory tone. "We want that office to be successful. We want you to have what you need to be successful," he told Dobbs. "But when we get sent an email that gets our attention, we have to address that. We can't just turn a blind eye to it."

The email in question came from the Oklahoma Tax Commission (OTC), and it contained devastating news: Sequoyah County had failed state compliance requirements so thoroughly that it stood alone among all 77 Oklahoma counties.

What Rogers didn't say that day was that this would be the first of five executive sessions over the next six months, totaling nearly 7.5 hours of closed-door deliberations. Each session brought Dobbs closer to what she likely never imagined when she was sworn into office in June 2021: formal removal proceedings.

The Sole Non-Compliant County

The statistics tell a stark story. According to the Oklahoma Tax Commission's 2025 Progress Report, 75 of Oklahoma's 77 counties met the ratio requirements established by State Question 675 in 1996. Those requirements mandate that property assessments fall within specific ranges: between 11% and 13.5% for each class of real property.

Sequoyah County didn't just miss these targets—it became the state's only Level One non-compliant county, meaning it failed to satisfy requirements in the equalization study conducted by the Oklahoma Tax Commission. Even worse, it simultaneously earned Level Two non-compliance status, despite what court documents describe as "numerous attempts by the OTC to provide necessary guidance."

To understand the magnitude of this failure, consider that neighboring counties with similar rural characteristics—Adair, Cherokee, Muskogee—all maintained compliance. Even counties that struggled with uniformity requirements kept their ratios within acceptable bounds.

Sequoyah County stood completely alone.

The $400,000 School Budget Shortfall

The consequences weren't merely bureaucratic. When a county falls out of compliance, it directly affects how state aid to school districts is calculated.

Court documents allege that Dobbs' "willful maladministration" on June 17, 2024, led to a $400,000 shortfall in school budgets for both 2024 and 2025. In a rural county where every dollar matters, this represents real money pulled from classrooms, teacher salaries, and student programs.

The lost taxable value tells an even bigger story: approximately $332 million in assessed property value that should have been on the books, contributing to county and school funding, simply wasn't there.

For context, Sequoyah County has a population of roughly 40,000 people. The county seat, Sallisaw, has about 8,000 residents. This isn't a massive metropolitan area with complex commercial districts and thousands of properties changing hands daily. It's a manageable jurisdiction where such catastrophic assessment failures shouldn't occur.

The Accusations: 20 Counts of Willful Maladministration

On February 24, 2025, after months of executive sessions and consultations with state officials, the Board of County Commissioners filed formal accusations for Dobbs' removal. The document listed at least 20 specific instances of what they characterized as "willful maladministration in violation of her statutory duties."

The accusations included:

Allowing dual non-compliance designations: Permitting the assessor's office to become the only county in Oklahoma classified as both Level One and Level Two non-compliant
Ignoring state guidance: Failing to heed "numerous attempts by the OTC to provide necessary guidance" on assessment uniformity
Creating school funding shortfalls: Actions on June 17, 2024, that directly resulted in $400,000 being stripped from school budgets
Deed processing backlog: Misrepresenting the extent of the 2024 deed processing backlog to the OTC, claiming to be "nearly current" when data entry lagged significantly, only reaching 980 deeds after "extreme pressure" from the OTC
Performance audit failures: Causing Level One non-compliance due to failures in meeting performance audit requirements conducted by the OTC

In addition to seeking Dobbs' removal, the commissioners requested her immediate suspension from office. They claimed combined losses of $1.15 million for the county and school districts, plus the staggering $332 million in lost taxable value.

District 3 Commissioner Jim Rogers, who had started with supportive language back in August, now called the decision to pursue removal "a tough decision, not one that we were excited about having to make."

Dobbs' Defense: Inherited Problems, Not Created Ones

From her attorney's office in Tulsa, Steve Hickman of Frasier, Frasier and Hickman mounted a vigorous defense of his client. His argument: Brandy Dobbs didn't create this mess—she inherited it.

Dobbs had served as deputy tax assessor before being appointed to fill the vacancy left when Kelly Miller departed in June 2021. According to Hickman, when Dobbs took office, she immediately discovered discrepancies in the data and began working with the OTC to address them.

"Ms. Dobbs has worked at the assessor's office for a number of years, after she had worked in the real estate-related business many years before," Hickman told the Eastern Times Register in February 2025. Far from being neglectful, he argued, Dobbs had been proactive: "She's gone in and checked, what we in the legal business call the green books—the Oklahoma statutes, and found other things, and has corrected them."

Hickman pointed out that Dobbs had completed 117 hours of continuing education—nearly double the 60 hours required for county assessors every three years. Her staff members had all completed their mandatory 30-hour requirements.

Moreover, Hickman noted, when he checked the state auditor's website, he found that "the board of county commissioners in Sequoyah County gets markdowns all the time, too." In other words, if the commissioners were going to point fingers about compliance failures, perhaps they should examine their own record.

The timeline matters here. Dobbs took office in June 2021. The compliance failures the state identified occurred in 2023 and 2024—meaning they developed on her watch, but potentially reflected systemic problems that predated her tenure and which she was actively trying to fix.

In a statement to the Vian Tenkiller newspaper in August 2024, Dobbs said her office had been "aware there were discrepancies within the data" and had been "diligently working with the OTC and CLGT [County Local Government Training] since 2023 to address and correct those discrepancies."

She added: "On July 12, 2024, my office sat down with the OTC and CLGT to outline a plan and steps necessary to rectify the discrepancies. We have already completed most of the items in said plan, which we received from the OTC on July 18, 2024. We are confident we will be successful in meeting all deadlines outlined in the plan."

The OTC Memorandum: A Potential Path Forward

Indeed, on July 18, 2024, the Oklahoma Tax Commission provided Dobbs with an 11-page memorandum that offered something unexpected: hope.

The memo stipulated that the OTC's Ad Valorem Division would "provide general assistance and direction" to the assessor's office and would conduct "regular reviews of work progress." Crucially, it stated that "existing data in the Sequoyah County CAMA (computer assisted mass appraisal) database appears to be reasonably accurate and may be utilized to generate values for 2025."

The memorandum further noted that the county had "re-qualified its 2024 sales to better match OTC rules."

Most significantly, it outlined a roadmap: if Dobbs' office performed the required work, with Ad Valorem Division monitoring throughout the process, then the State Board of Equalization would "at its June 2025 meeting, be in a position to move the county into compliance."

This was a lifeline. But it came with conditions and deadlines. And by then, the commissioners had already spent months in executive sessions debating Dobbs' future.

The Legal Battle: Delays, Venue Changes, and Postponements

After the commissioners filed their February 24, 2025, accusation for removal, Sequoyah County District Attorney Jack Thorp immediately recused himself from the case. Because he represents all county elected officials, he couldn't prosecute one of them. LeFlore County District Attorney Kevin Merritt was assigned to represent the prosecution.

At a March 6 hearing, Dobbs' attorney Steve Hickman claimed there were "several insufficiencies" in the removal accusation. District Judge Jeffrey Payton agreed, and on March 17, following a 43-minute executive session, the commissioners filed an amended accusation that reduced the number of violations but sharpened the focus on the financial impact.

By April, Judge Payton granted a change of venue motion and set a jury trial for May 5, 2025, in Muskogee County District Court. Then came the first postponement—the trial was continued to "sometime in September."

But on August 15, 2025, another order pushed the trial yet again, this time to the spring 2026 docket in Adair County District Court, with "dates to be announced as they are set."

For Dobbs, this means roughly seven months have passed since the accusations were filed, with potentially another six to eight months before resolution. As the Eastern Times Register noted, quoting 19th-century philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson: "How much of human life is lost in waiting?"

Throughout this period, Dobbs has continued working as county assessor. Unlike Pittsburg County Sheriff Chris Morris, who was suspended during his embezzlement proceedings, Dobbs was never formally suspended, despite the commissioners' request.

The Broader Context: Oklahoma's History of County Corruption

Sequoyah County's assessment crisis unfolds against the backdrop of Oklahoma's long and troubled history with county-level corruption.

In the 1980s, the state experienced what was then the largest public corruption case in U.S. history. The OKSCAM investigation by the FBI resulted in convictions or guilty pleas from at least 230 people across 60 of the state's 77 counties. The scheme involved kickbacks and stolen public money totaling about $200 million annually (roughly $763 million in today's dollars), with county commissioners receiving bribes from suppliers who submitted false invoices for road-building materials.

More recently, Eastern Oklahoma has seen its share of official misconduct:

Pittsburg County Sheriff Chris Morris (May 2024-January 2025): Charged with felony embezzlement and bribery for allegedly selling his personal utility vehicle to the sheriff's office for $29,000 and negotiating free repairs in exchange for sending county vehicles to certain shops. Despite winning re-election while suspended, Morris ultimately pleaded no contest to misdemeanor embezzlement and resigned in January 2025.
Cotton County Commissioner Micah Woods (2023-2024): Accused of using county employees to build campaign signs on county time and embezzling money meant for air conditioning repairs. Woods resigned in March 2024 and is banned from public office for 15 years.
Comanche County Commissioner John O'Brien (March 2024): Charged with two felony counts of embezzlement and computer crimes for allegedly using a county vehicle for personal errands and sending sexually explicit text messages to employees.

What distinguishes Dobbs' case from these examples is that hers doesn't allege personal enrichment or theft. The accusations center on competence and compliance—on whether she willfully failed to perform her statutory duties, not whether she stole from county coffers.

This makes the case both less salacious and more complex. If the commissioners prove their case, they'll need to demonstrate that Dobbs' failures were "willful" rather than the result of inherited problems, inadequate resources, or the steep learning curve of a technical job in a small county.

A Year of Delays, Zero Accountability

Here's what makes this story particularly infuriating for Sequoyah County taxpayers: the legal system has had over a year to resolve this, and instead, it's given us a masterclass in bureaucratic paralysis.

February 24, 2025: County commissioners file formal accusations seeking Dobbs' removal. The case is assigned to LeFlore County District Attorney Kevin Merritt because the local DA had to recuse himself.

March 6, 2025: First hearing. Defense attorney Steve Hickman claims "several insufficiencies" in the accusations. Judge Jeffrey Payton agrees.

March 17, 2025: After a 43-minute executive session, commissioners file an amended accusation.

April 10, 2025: Judge Payton grants a change of venue and sets a jury trial for May 5, 2025, in Muskogee County District Court.

May 5, 2025: Trial postponed. New date: "sometime in September 2025."

August 15, 2025: Trial postponed again. New date: "spring 2026 docket" in Adair County, with "dates to be announced."

May 14, 2026: Still no trial date announced. Dobbs remains on the job. The compliance crisis continues.

That's 15 months since the accusations were filed. Nearly two years since commissioners first convened emergency executive sessions about the assessment failures. And the case is no closer to resolution than it was a year ago.

Meanwhile, every day Dobbs remains in office is another day that Sequoyah County stays non-compliant, another day that school funding formulas are calculated on flawed data, another day that property owners face inequitable assessments.

The Questions Nobody's Answering

The delays raise uncomfortable questions that neither the commissioners nor the court system seem willing to address:

If the evidence is so clear, why has this taken 15 months? The commissioners claim they have audits from the Oklahoma Tax Commission documenting systematic failures. They claim Dobbs misrepresented the deed processing backlog and ignored state guidance. If the case is that straightforward, why the endless postponements?

Why hasn't Dobbs been suspended? Unlike Pittsburg County Sheriff Chris Morris—who was suspended while facing embezzlement charges—Dobbs has continued working throughout these proceedings. The commissioners initially requested her suspension, but it was never granted. So she remains in charge of the very office she's accused of mismanaging.

What's being done about the compliance crisis right now? The Oklahoma Tax Commission gave Dobbs a roadmap in July 2024 for achieving compliance by June 2025. That deadline has come and gone. Is Sequoyah County still non-compliant? Has anything improved? The public deserves answers.

Who's monitoring the situation? Are the commissioners conducting regular reviews? Is the OTC providing oversight? Or has everyone decided to just wait for a trial that may never happen?

What happens to the 2026 school budgets? If Sequoyah County is still non-compliant (and there's no public information suggesting otherwise), schools are presumably facing another year of reduced state aid. How much will they lose this year? $400,000 again? More?

Nobody in authority seems willing to answer these questions publicly.

What "Level One Non-Compliance" Actually Means

To understand what Dobbs allegedly failed to do, it helps to understand what county assessors are supposed to do.

Under Oklahoma law, county assessors must value real property at 11% to 13.5% of its fair cash value. This assessment ratio is crucial because it determines how much revenue schools, counties, and other local entities receive from property taxes.

The State Board of Equalization—composed of the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, State Treasurer, Superintendent of Public Instruction, State Auditor, and President of the Board of Agriculture—meets each December to review county compliance. The Oklahoma Tax Commission conducts equalization studies to determine whether counties are assessing property correctly and uniformly.

Counties can fail compliance in several ways:

Assessment ratio failures: Property assessed at the wrong percentage of fair cash value
Uniformity failures: Different types of property (residential, commercial, agricultural) assessed inconsistently within the county
Performance audit failures: Not maintaining proper records, not completing visual inspections on schedule, or not processing deeds in a timely manner

Sequoyah County appears to have failed on multiple fronts simultaneously, which is why it earned both Level One and Level Two non-compliance designations.

The deed processing backlog is particularly telling. According to the accusations, Dobbs misrepresented the extent of the 2024 backlog to the OTC, claiming to be "nearly current" when in reality the office had fallen far behind. Only after "extreme pressure" from the OTC did the office process 980 deeds—suggesting a significant backlog had accumulated.

For a county assessor, deeds are fundamental. Every property transfer, every sale that establishes a new market value, flows through deed processing. If you're not keeping up with deeds, you can't accurately assess property values. And if you can't accurately assess property values, you can't maintain the assessment ratios the state requires.

The Commissioners' Dilemma

For the Sequoyah County Commissioners, the decision to pursue Dobbs' removal wasn't made lightly. Rogers' August 2024 comments suggest genuine reluctance: "The last thing we want to do is take anybody's job."

But commissioners face their own accountability. When the State Board of Equalization determines a county is non-compliant, it can order the county to correct its assessments. If disputes arise, they can end up before the Court of Tax Review, potentially costing the county legal fees and administrative costs.

More importantly, commissioners answer to voters who see their school funding cut by $400,000. They answer to property owners who may be over-assessed or under-assessed due to inconsistent evaluation methods. They answer to state auditors who review county finances and compliance.

After conducting multiple executive sessions with state officials and reviewing OTC audits, the commissioners apparently concluded they had no choice. As Rogers put it in February 2025: "We made a tough decision today, not one that we were excited about having to make."

The commissioners' repeated executive sessions—five meetings totaling 7.5 hours over six months—suggest they were looking for a way to avoid removal. They gave Dobbs multiple opportunities to demonstrate progress. They waited through the summer and fall of 2024 to see if the OTC's July intervention would turn things around.

But by December 2024, when they convened yet another executive session, whatever confidence they might have had appears to have evaporated.

The $332 Million Question

The single most striking figure in this entire case is the $332 million in lost taxable value. How does a county simply lose that much assessed property value?

The answer likely lies in systematic under-assessment. If properties across the county were being valued at, say, 9% of fair cash value instead of the required 11-13.5%, the cumulative effect across thousands of properties would be enormous.

Consider a simple example: A home with a fair cash value of $200,000 should be assessed at $22,000 to $27,000 (11-13.5%). If it's instead assessed at $18,000 (9%), that's $4,000 to $9,000 in lost taxable value per property. Multiply that across a few thousand residential properties, add in commercial and agricultural land, and you quickly reach hundreds of millions in cumulative losses.

This isn't money the county "lost" in the sense that it disappeared. It's taxable value that should have been on the books but wasn't, which means schools, emergency services, road maintenance, and other local government functions received less funding than they should have.

The school budget impact is more direct: state aid formulas use the county's assessed valuation to determine how much support schools receive. When Sequoyah County's assessed values fell out of compliance, schools in the county got $400,000 less in 2024 and 2025 than they otherwise would have received.

For cash-strapped rural school districts, that's not abstract. That's teacher positions, textbooks, building maintenance, and bus routes.

A System Under Strain

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this case is how it reveals the fragility of local government capacity in rural Oklahoma.

County assessor is an elected position, but it requires highly technical expertise. You need to understand property law, appraisal methodology, computer-assisted mass appraisal systems, state assessment ratios, and constantly evolving OTC requirements. You need staff who can process deeds, conduct field inspections, maintain databases, and respond to citizen inquiries.

In Sequoyah County, with a population around 40,000 and limited tax revenue, how much can you invest in assessor's office operations? How competitive is the salary for a position that requires certification, continuing education, and mastery of complex regulations?

Dobbs' supporters might argue she was set up to fail—handed an office with inherited problems, insufficient resources, and mounting state requirements, then blamed when the system broke. Her critics counter that she had nearly four years to fix the problems and only made them worse.

The truth likely lies somewhere between these positions. But the case raises uncomfortable questions about whether Oklahoma's system of elected county assessors, designed for a simpler era, can function effectively in the modern regulatory environment—especially in smaller, poorer counties.

What Happens Next—If Anything

As of May 2026, we're left with more questions than answers:

Where is this case? The most recent public information says it was postponed to "spring 2026" in Adair County. Spring 2026 is now. Has a trial date been set? Has the case been postponed again? The public record is silent.
Is Sequoyah County still non-compliant? The State Board of Equalization meets annually in December. Did the board re-evaluate Sequoyah County's status in December 2025? If so, what was the finding? No public announcement appears to have been made.
How much are schools losing in 2026? The original accusations documented $400,000 in shortfalls for 2024 and 2025. If the underlying problems haven't been fixed, schools are presumably facing similar losses this year. But nobody's talking about it.
Why is Dobbs still working? She faces accusations that, if proven, would demonstrate fundamental incompetence in managing a critical county function. Yet she continues to oversee property assessments, process deeds, and manage the very systems she allegedly mismanaged. How does that make sense?

If the jury eventually finds in favor of the commissioners, Dobbs will be removed from office and barred from holding county office in the future. The commissioners would then need to appoint a replacement to fill out her term.

If the jury finds in favor of Dobbs, she'll be vindicated—but the compliance crisis won't disappear. The county will still need to meet state assessment requirements, process any remaining deed backlog, and restore the lost $332 million in taxable value.

Either way, the damage of the past year is already done. Schools that lost funding in 2024, 2025, and likely 2026 won't get that money back. Property owners who were over-assessed or under-assessed due to flawed methodologies have already paid incorrect tax bills. The State Board of Equalization has already calculated state aid formulas based on bad data.

The Real Scandal: A System That Doesn't Work

Perhaps the most damning aspect of this entire saga isn't Brandy Dobbs' alleged failures or the commissioners' inability to resolve the situation quickly. It's what the case reveals about the fragility of rural governance in Oklahoma.

Sequoyah County isn't unique in facing capacity challenges. With a population around 40,000, limited tax revenue, and the technical demands of modern property assessment, it's hardly surprising that a small county might struggle. What's surprising—and deeply troubling—is that when those struggles become catastrophic, the system has no effective way to respond.

Consider the timeline: The Oklahoma Tax Commission identified serious compliance failures in Sequoyah County probably in 2023, certainly by early 2024. They worked with Dobbs' office through 2024. By August 2024, the situation was bad enough that commissioners convened emergency sessions. By February 2025, they filed for removal.

It's now May 2026, and we're still waiting.

In that time:

Schools have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars (possibly approaching $1 million across three budget cycles)
Property owners have faced inequitable tax assessments
The county's taxable base remains understated by $332 million
State aid formulas have been calculated on flawed data
And the person allegedly responsible for all of this remains in the job

This isn't just a Brandy Dobbs problem or a Sequoyah County problem. It's a systemic failure that raises fundamental questions about how Oklahoma governs itself at the local level.

The Accountability Vacuum

Here's what should have happened:

When the OTC identified catastrophic compliance failures in the only county in Oklahoma unable to meet basic standards, that should have triggered immediate state intervention. Not suggestions. Not roadmaps. Not voluntary compliance plans. Intervention.

When commissioners filed for removal with documented evidence of "willful maladministration," that case should have been fast-tracked. Not postponed once, twice, and counting. Fast-tracked.

When a county official faces credible accusations that her failures are costing schools hundreds of thousands of dollars, she should have been suspended pending resolution. Not allowed to continue managing the very systems she allegedly broke. Suspended.

Instead, we got: executive sessions, postponements, amended accusations, venue changes, and a vague promise of a trial "sometime in spring 2026."

And while the lawyers and judges and commissioners shuffle papers, Sequoyah County children attend schools with smaller budgets, property owners pay taxes based on inequitable assessments, and the state's entire system of county governance is exposed as fundamentally inadequate to handle even straightforward accountability cases.

What Taxpayers Deserve to Know

For anyone reading this in Sequoyah County—or any of the other 76 Oklahoma counties—here are the questions you should be asking your elected officials:

To the Sequoyah County Commissioners:

What is the current status of the Dobbs removal case?
When will there actually be a trial?
Is Sequoyah County still non-compliant as of the December 2025 State Board of Equalization meeting?
How much state aid did schools lose in the 2026 budget cycle?
What oversight are you providing of the assessor's office while this case is pending?
If you believe Dobbs is guilty of willful maladministration, why haven't you pushed harder for her suspension?

To the Oklahoma Tax Commission:

What is Sequoyah County's current compliance status?
How many counties were non-compliant in December 2025?
What interventions, if any, are you conducting in Sequoyah County right now?
Do you have the authority to directly manage a county assessor's office that fails compliance this catastrophically?

To the Court System:

Why has this case been postponed twice?
When will there actually be a trial?
Is there any mechanism to fast-track cases involving ongoing harm to public school funding?

To Brandy Dobbs:

Do you maintain that you've corrected the compliance failures?
Will you voluntarily step aside until the case is resolved?
What specific actions have you taken since February 2025 to address the commissioners' accusations?

These aren't complicated questions. But more than a year into this crisis, the public still doesn't have answers.

The Bottom Line

Sequoyah County is the only county in Oklahoma—the ONLY county out of 77—that can't meet basic property assessment requirements.

That failure has cost schools at least $400,000, probably closer to $800,000 or $1 million when you include 2026 losses.

It has understated the county's taxable property value by $332 million.

The county assessor accused of causing these failures has been charged with removal for over 15 months and still has no trial date.

She continues to run the office she allegedly mismanaged.

And nobody in authority seems capable of or interested in resolving the situation.

If this doesn't make you angry, you're not paying attention.

This is a developing story. EastOklahoma.com has submitted public records requests to Sequoyah County, the Oklahoma Tax Commission, and the Adair County District Court seeking current information on the trial date, compliance status, and school funding impacts. We will update this article as information becomes available.

If you have information about this case, contact us confidentially at dustinreedterry@gmail.com

UPDATE (5/14/26, 2:00 PM): After publication of this article, we contacted the Sequoyah County Commissioners' office for comment on the current status of the case. We will update with their response.