Ex-Cop Daniel Holtzclaw Sentenced to Full 263 Years in Prison for Raping, Assaulting Black Women
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Ex-Oklahoma City police officer Daniel Holtzclaw, 29, has been sentenced to 263 years in prison, the full amount recommended by a jury. Holtzclaw was convicted in December of 18 counts of rape, sexual battery, and assorted other crimes after 13 black women testified he’d used his badge to assault them, then intimidate them into silence.
Three of Holtzclaw’s victims were present Thursday to give victim impact statements during the hearing. But the sentencing was delayed by more than three hours while District Judge Timothy Henderson met with both sides to consider Holtzclaw’s request for a new trial.
Holtzclaw entered the courthouse Thursday morning to a T.V. reporter shouting “What do you have to say for yourself?”, to which he didn’t respond. He was then immediately escorted back into the judge’s chambers.
On Wednesday, Holtzclaw’s attorney Scott Adams had requested a new trial, claiming the prosecution “made deliberate discovery violations and misrepresentations, undermining confidence in the verdict.”
The defense argued that they’d discovered those “misrepresentations” due to a Facebook post by Oklahoma City Police Department detective Jake McClain. In the now-deleted post, McClain insinuated that he had inside knowledge about the case and that “several of the victims were found to be liars looking for their piece of the pie,” KOCO reported. One of the jurors was also interviewed by KOCO; he told them that after sentencing, they’d learned of “other stuff not in evidence” that confirmed Holtzclaw’s guilt. Adams argued both those things meant evidence had been withheld from the defense.