Oklahoma just witnessed another shocking example of what happens when the left takes over the criminal justice system and treats thugs like victims and victims like castoffs. Between 2022 and 2026, Ghanaian migrant Jeff Kofi Asare accumulated a hefty criminal record in Oklahoma with 7 convictions and a litany of charges including larceny, trespass, and resisting an officer. Asare saw little jail time for most of these offenses and spent a total of 75 days incarcerated for two breaking-and-entering convictions despite repeated criminal activity escalating in severity, which culminated in an alleged depraved sexual assault spree earlier this month.
On Aug. 1, he was arrested for sexual battery and indecent exposure after allegedly groping two women near a bus stop and was subsequently released pre-trial. On Aug. 6, he was again arrested for sexual battery for allegedly groping a woman near a park and again released pre-trial. On Aug. 12, he was arrested for attempted rape after firefighters heard screams and rescued a woman, allegedly from his clutches.
Like Iryna Zarutska before them, these four alleged victims, who were simply trying to board a bus or take a walk in a park, made the reasonable but increasingly inaccurate assumption that they were not in the presence of a violent criminal who had been arrested and released numerous times.
None of this is isolated to Charlotte or Oklahoma City. The anti-incarceration movement is a left-wing initiative aimed at transforming society by reorganizing government around welfare programs as opposed to criminal justice. For them, decarceration must occur for the left’s alternative social order of community organizations, programs, and redistributive institutions to grow. As University of Minnesota Law Professor Amna Akbar put it, they are set on “fundamentally transforming the relationship among state, market, and society” by “shrinking the space of governance now reserved for policing, surveillance, and mass incarceration.”
Some blame the judges for what happened to these four women. Some blame Oklahoma County DA Vicki Behenna, a Democrat. The reality is much darker. While these individuals played a role in the carnage, the entire Oklahoma County justice system has failed to protect citizens from Asare for years because of a sprawling “criminal justice reform” infrastructure that is part of a broader left-wing, anti-incarceration movement.
This infrastructure begins with eight-figure donations from a wealthy oil-fortune “heiress” and extends all the way to the office of Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond. Notably, Drummond is competing in Tuesday’s runoff to become the Oklahoma Republican nominee for governor.
Following the Money Driving Oklahoma’s ‘Criminal Justice Reform’
In the name of “criminal justice reform,” left-wing activists inside Oklahoma County have spent years building an infrastructure designed to keep criminals out of jail. The Arnall Family Foundation was the driving force behind that transformation. Its founder, Sue Ann Arnall, ex-wife of oil tycoon Harold Hamm, is the founder and chairwoman of Diversion Hub, an organization devoted to diverting “justice-involved individuals” from prison sentences to community programs.
The foundation says it has given Diversion Hub more than $56 million.
Arnall is also a primary donor behind The Education and Employment Ministry (TEEM),which operates hand-in-hand with Diversion Hub. These two entities represent the left-wing alternative to incarceration and are official contractors with Oklahoma County.
The infrastructure also involves local judges. Arnall has worked with District Judge Cindy Truong on an own-recognizance bond program intended to free defendants who could not afford bail. In 2024, Truong came under intense criticism after releasing on a TEEM bond a repeat offender who had admitted guilt following his third arrest for illegal possession of a firearm. The man, Andre Hunter, subsequently kidnapped and raped a Lyft driver.
Now, it has happened again. Among Asare’s many inexplicable releases leading up to his recent alleged sexual assault spree, Truong was the judge who released Asare in March 2025 following his arrest for trespassing and obstructing an officer. Once again, the release was into the TEEM program. Truong released Asare despite the case involving his fifth arrest in just over two years.
Arnall’s Politics and The Gentner Drummond Connection
Arnall’s influence goes well beyond diversion programs into the state’s political establishment. In addition to contributing to Truong, public records show she has donated more than $900,000 to candidates and PACs since 2016, almost all of it going to Democrats (including Hillary Clinton) and moderate Republicans.
Most recently, Arnall hosted a July 2025 fundraiser for Drummond, and in April 2026, Oklahoma County received a three-year, $900,000 grant from Drummond’s office for a program operated in partnership with Diversion Hub, funding three new positions at Arnall’s organization.
Why The Left Intentionally Sets Violent Criminals Free
For the left, the relevant question when it comes to criminal law is not whether punishment works to deter criminals or protect the public; it is whose power is increased and whose is diminished by the criminal justice system. Reducing incarceration and shrinking policing are thus the mechanisms by which power is stripped from traditional, intrinsically right-leaning institutions (such as police) and given to alternative, leftist-controlled social welfare organizations. You are making the proper connections if organizations like TEEM and Diversion Hub come to mind when you read this.
Defeating these forces of societal entropy is achievable as awareness of the dangerous pro-crime attitudes of left-wing politicians and judges is becoming more apparent. Reestablishing safety in the public square requires following the money to discover which subversive, left-wing “philanthropists” like Arnall are funding the jailbreaks, which left-wing prosecutors and judges repeatedly release violent, repeat offenders, and which moderate Republicans (in name only) like Gentner Drummond are all too happy to play along.
