DA Kunzweiler and his allies have decided they cannot win on the issues or on his record, so they are flooding the zone with false claims about Colleen McCarty, her work, her family, her campaign, and even her past clients.
Here are the facts.
Colleen is a “secret Democrat.”
FactColleen is a Republican. She believes Tulsa County deserves a strong Republican DA because she believes Tulsa County needs public safety, fiscal discipline, transparency, and accountability. She has registered Independent and Democrat in the past. In 2024, issues surrounding horrific abuse in the juvenile detention center caused a partisan uproar. Colleen would not be silent about the abuse of the children, and how she was treated made her realize she did not stand with the Democratic party anymore. She registered Republican long before deciding to run for DA, and she has worked with Republican leadership in the Oklahoma legislature on major public-safety and justice initiatives for six years. A label is not a substitute for facts.
Colleen will be “soft on crime.”
FactColleen’s platform is public safety first. Throughout her career she has never advocated for dangerous or violent criminals to be able to roam our streets. Quite the opposite. Our current DA cannot say the same. Many of Colleen’s clients became involved in the justice system due to a systemic blind eye against their abusers committing violent acts. Repeat violent offenders have long been able to roam Tulsa’s streets with little accountability — especially domestic violence offenders. If she is elected, this will cease. She has repeatedly said violent criminals, habitual offenders, child predators, and people who endanger our communities must be prosecuted seriously. Her campaign website says she will focus on “dangerous criminals,” seek tough sentences when called for, and protect victims.
Colleen has “no experience.”
FactColleen is a prosecutor-trained attorney admitted in Oklahoma district courts, the Federal Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court. She trained in the Tulsa County Juvenile Division, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and the Wagoner County District Attorney’s Office, including work involving misdemeanors, felonies, fraud, child neglect, drug trafficking, and child exploitation cases. She was trained by the best trial attorneys. She was able to serve on jury trial teams for both defense and federal prosecution.
Since becoming licensed to practice law, she has defended many cases which resulted in favorable outcomes for her clients in municipal and district courts. Of particular note is her work on the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act, where she is frequently credited with drafting the bill and has represented several clients in applications for sentencing relief. Reviewing post-conviction cases and presenting these applications to the court is incredibly labor intensive and detailed. These also involve conducting hearings before the court which are similar to trial — witnesses are called, evidence is put on, and there is a determination. Colleen has also prepared appeals under these applications. She has done civil litigation work both as a Summer Associate for Titus Hillis Reynolds Love, and as a lawyer taking cases to the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Before her legal career she had over a decade of management and leadership experience in corporate environments as well.
You would be hard pressed to find an attorney her age who has accomplished as much as she has in such varied areas. An attorney with prior management and leadership skills who has legislative drafting experience, civil and human rights experience, civil litigation experience, criminal and post-conviction experience, is rare.
Jury trials make up less than one percent of criminal trials in Tulsa. Anyone telling you that the elected District Attorney should be conducting lots of jury trials is misleading you. In both larger and smaller counties in Oklahoma, elected DAs are not going to court and conducting jury trials. They spend their time administering the office, selecting the best talent, ensuring a balanced budget, representing the County Commissioners on civil legal matters, and leading their team. That is not to say Colleen would not conduct jury trials when the community calls for it or a crime requires it, but she would be surrounded with the best of the best prosecutors as well.
Colleen is a “Bernie Sanders acolyte.”
FactColleen gave some $27 donations to Bernie Sanders in 2016 to stop Hillary Clinton from getting the presidential nomination. She is certainly not an “acolyte” — she is a capitalist and fully disavows socialism. A decade-old donation or political disagreement will not define Colleen’s record, her platform, or this race. Colleen is running on public safety, taxpayer accountability, victims’ rights, and a modern DA’s office.
Colleen McCarty is “pro abortion.”
FactColleen has not supported abortion. She attended an event in 2012 that was not a “pro choice rally.” It was a gathering at the Capitol to protest a Personhood bill that would have eliminated in-vitro fertilization and other forms of medically assisted pregnancy in Oklahoma. As someone who has struggled to conceive both of her children and who needed medical intervention to become a mom, she strongly opposed the language in that personhood bill because she believes anyone who wants to be a mother should have all avenues available to them to do so. That bill was very poorly worded and even though it was long before she went to law school, it was one of her first glimpses into how important bill language can be. The bill failed in a majority Republican legislature because they realized this bill would restrict women’s rights to become mothers.
Colleen will turn Tulsa into San Francisco or Philadelphia.
FactColleen’s platform is Tulsa-specific: prosecute violent crime, stop repeat offenders, protect and listen to victims, modernize data systems, and stop wasting taxpayer money. That is not San Francisco. That is basic competence.
Walk downtown at night or many other Tulsa neighborhoods and tell us who is turning Tulsa into Chicago or San Francisco. Tulsa gets less safe every single day. And that’s Steve Kunzweiler’s legacy after 11 years in office.
The other side “knows where the dark money is coming from.”
FactCandidates are not allowed to know anything about or coordinate with 501(c)(4)s operating in the political space in their races. It is certainly true that dark money has entered this race against the sitting DA. His conduct over the last 11 years has inspired many Tulsans to be angry at him. If they use their First Amendment right to donate to a political organization, that is their prerogative. Any candidate claiming to know anything about these organizations is either illegally coordinating with them or they are lying. If someone has evidence of unlawful spending, they should produce it instead of laundering rumors through Facebook posts and whisper campaigns.
Colleen “puts the criminal first.”
FactColleen has spent years fighting for victims, survivors, abused children, transparency, and accountability. Public reporting confirms her work on the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act, the Tulsa County Juvenile Detention Center, and the April Wilkens case, among many others. Colleen puts justice first. Her record shows it.
Colleen’s $100,000 campaign loan will be paid back by secret donors after the election.
FactThis is conspiracy-theory nonsense. Campaign loans are disclosed through ethics filings. This allegation was pulled from thin air and there is nothing to back it up. Politicians self-finance their own campaigns all the time. Colleen was blessed to inherit money from her grandparents. In the 1920s her grandfather was told he was not good enough to pick cotton. One generation later he was able to bequeath money to his grandchildren. That inheritance is what Colleen used to fund her campaign. There is no expectation she will be paid back, because she is in to win it until the very end.
Colleen’s family foundation, the Scissortail Family Foundation, is illegal or avoiding capital gains tax.
FactThe foundation’s public nonprofit filings are available. Public nonprofit databases identify it as tax-exempt, list its Form 990-PF filings, and show Colleen McCarty, Paula Marshall, and Jacob Chapman receiving $0 compensation. Any allegations that this family foundation is operating illegally are false and potentially actionable.
Every job Colleen has had was about “turning criminals loose.”
FactFalse. Colleen’s legal background includes prosecution-side training, federal prosecution exposure, juvenile justice, victim advocacy, open-government work, public-interest litigation, nonprofit leadership, and courtroom advocacy. Saying something over and over doesn’t make it true.
Colleen is “Soros funded.”
FactProduce the check. Neither Colleen nor the campaign has ever received money from George Soros. Repeating the word “Soros” is not evidence.
Colleen left her former client April Wilkens “in the lurch.”
FactFalse. Colleen represented April Wilkens from late 2022 through late January 2026. When she withdrew from the case, Colleen ensured Ms. Wilkens had appellate counsel in her case and has been working with said counsel to ensure they have everything they need to represent her in her Survivors’ Act appeal. Court records confirm this.
Colleen failed to turn over records to April Wilkens’ new attorneys.
FactFalse. That is a serious accusation, and it is false. Public documents on the case (CF-1998-2173) confirm Colleen handed everything over to Ms. Wilkens’ current attorneys from her prior representation.
Colleen going to law school is why Mod’s Coffee and Crepes closed.
FactThis is so absurd it barely deserves a response. Businesses close for many reasons. Colleen’s family had to make the incredibly difficult decision to close Mod’s Coffee and Crepes in December 2017 after it had been open almost a decade due to economic downturns. It was a lovely and romantic spot for many Tulsans, and both Colleen and Rusty have fond memories of running the business and seeing so many people enjoy it.
Here is the truth.
Colleen is running because Tulsa County deserves a District Attorney’s Office that is serious about public safety, smart with taxpayer money, honest with the public, and accountable to the people it serves.
If the opponents of this campaign had a record they could defend, they would defend it.
Instead, they are attacking Colleen’s family, her clients, her education, her work, her motives, and even making up conspiracy theories about a family foundation.
Tulsa deserves better than that.