Emails Reveal Oklahoma Attorney General Agreed to Release Richard Glossip

The Intercept

16-07-2025

Two years before the U.S. Supreme Court vacated Richard Glossip's conviction and death sentence, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond sent an email to Glossip's attorney, agreeing to a plan for Glossip's release should a court rule in his favor.
'Once the conviction is vacated,' Glossip's attorney Don Knight wrote to Drummond on April 1, 2023, the state would bring a new charge against his client: 'a single count of being an Accessory After the Fact.' Glossip 'will plead guilty to this charge' and be given credit for time served. Under the terms, Glossip would be entitled to immediate release.
'We are in agreement,' Drummond replied.
Instead of following through with the agreement, Drummond, a Republican who is currently running for governor, reversed course and announced in June that Oklahoma would again prosecute Glossip for first degree murder in the 1997 death of motel owner Barry Van Treese.
The email exchange was filed as part of an unusual motion by Glossip's defense team in Oklahoma County District Court on Wednesday. The filing asks the court to enforce the previous agreement, which the lawyers describe as a binding contract.
'As Mr. Glossip remains in custody despite the Attorney General's agreement that he should have been released at least two years ago, this matter is of the utmost importance and needs to be heard before any other matters are determined,' Glossip's lawyers wrote.
'Drummond has refused to complete his end of the bargain.'
Glossip was twice convicted and sentenced to death for murdering Van Treese inside Room 102 of the rundown motel his family owned on the outskirts of Oklahoma City. A 19-year-old maintenance man named Justin Sneed admitted to bludgeoning Van Treese to death, but insisted Glossip put him up to it. Sneed, who is currently serving a life sentence, escaped the death penalty by becoming the star witness against Glossip. Richard Glossip is escorted from the courtroom following a bond hearing before Oklahoma County District Judge Heather Coyle on June 17, 2025. Liliana Segura/The Intercept
Glossip had originally been charged as an accessory after-the-fact for initially failing to give police information about the murder. The night Van Treese was killed, Glossip said, Sneed had woken him up around 4 a.m. by knocking on the wall of his apartment, which was adjacent to the motel's office. Standing outside with a black eye, Sneed told Glossip he had chased off some drunks who had broken a window in one of the motel rooms. According to Glossip, he asked Sneed about his black eye, and Sneed flippantly replied, 'I killed Barry.' It wasn't until the next morning, when no one could find Van Treese, that Glossip realized Sneed might have been serious. Still, Glossip didn't tell the cops right away; he said his girlfriend suggested waiting until they figured out what was going on.
The 2023 email exchange between Drummond and Knight is extraordinary not only because of its content, but also because of its timing. The agreement came less than a week before Drummond asked the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to overturn Glossip's conviction.
Drummond had assumed office that January and almost immediately appointed a special investigator to review Glossip's case. The review found numerous flaws – including that prosecutors had hidden key evidence from Glossip's defense and that Sneed had lied on the stand – and prompted Drummond's filing with the OCCA.
The email exchange reveals that Drummond and Knight had discussed Drummond's plan and strongly suggests that the attorneys believed the OCCA would grant Drummond's motion. Knight's email lays out a step-by-step process for what would happen next. Once the conviction was overturned and sent back to Oklahoma County, Drummond would retain control over the case rather than returning it to the local district attorney; he would effectuate the plea deal.
'The parties agree that Mr. Glossip will receive a sentence of 45 years,' Knight wrote, noting that this was the maximum sentence for accessory after the fact at the time of the murder. 'The State agrees to give Mr. Glossip credit for all time he has served' since 1997. He would also get credit for good behavior. 'The parties stipulate and agree that, with this credit being applied, Mr. Glossip is eligible for immediate release as his sentence was completed in 2016.' In exchange, Glossip would agree not to sue the state for anything related to his 'arrest and incarceration.'
Knight told Drummond that he would send a document memorializing the full terms of their deal. 'If I have misstated anything, or left anything out of this agreement, please let me know so I can be sure to include it,' Knight wrote. Drummond offered no notes, simply replying that the two were in agreement.
But in a shocking move, the OCCA rejected Drummond's motion, setting Glossip up for yet another execution date. Drummond then took the unprecedented step of urging the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board to intervene, writing in a letter that, while he believed that Glossip is guilty of being an accessory, the record 'does not support that he is guilty of first-degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt.' Testifying at Glossip's clemency hearing in April 2023, Drummond said, 'I'm not aware of any time in our history that an attorney general has appeared before this board and argued for clemency. I'm also not aware of any time in the history of Oklahoma when justice would require it.'
Despite Drummond's pleas, the Board rejected Glossip's clemency bid. With Glossip's execution just weeks away, Drummond joined the defense attorneys in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. The court halted Glossip's execution and agreed to review his conviction. In February, the justices ruled in Glossip's favor, agreeing that prosecutorial misconduct had tainted the case and that Sneed was not credible.
In the wake of the ruling, Drummond made the rounds, boasting about his success before the high court. Asked at a press conference how he might resolve the case, Drummond said, 'everything is on the table; a jury trial, all the way down,' but noted it 'would be difficult' to retry Glossip after so many years.
Given his public posture, there was every reason to expect that once the case returned to Oklahoma County, Drummond would seek to resolve it – even without a previous agreement. But instead, he did an about-face, announcing in June that the state would seek another first-degree murder conviction for Glossip. At a bond hearing on June 17, the state presented no new evidence to support such a prosecution.
In the new motion, Glossip's attorneys emphasize the lack of new evidence, saying that nothing has changed about the state's case that would invalidate the 2023 agreement between Drummond and Knight. The conditions necessary to fulfill the contract have been met, the lawyers note – Glossip's conviction was overturned and sent back to Oklahoma County. Still, they wrote, 'General Drummond has refused to complete his end of the bargain.'
Drummond's office did not have an immediate response to The Intercept's request for comment.
This isn't the first time Drummond has been accused in court filings of reneging on an agreement to resolve a criminal case. On June 30, Stephen Jones, a powerhouse and politically connected Oklahoma attorney, filed a scathing motion in an unrelated case, complaining that Drummond had weaseled out on a deal to defer prosecution of his client, a former judge suffering from dementia. According to Jones, on two separate occasions Drummond told him they had a deal, then ceased communications and instead assigned an underling to move forward with the case in violation of their agreement.
Jones, who describes himself as a 'strong supporter of the Attorney General's political ambitions,' accuses Drummond of playing politics and asks the court to enforce their agreement. Ultimately, Jones contends that whatever happens, forcing his client to go to trial would end up being a public embarrassment for Drummond and his office. 'No jury … is going to convict a terminally ill man with dementia in the middle to final stages of his disease and it will not be well-taken by the jury or the public if the Defendant is actually put to trial,' Jones wrote.
Glossip's lawyers have long argued that the same outcome is inevitable if Drummond persists in retrying Glossip for first-degree murder. Drummond has conceded that the state destroyed key evidence in the case and that Sneed's credibility has been unalterably damaged.
It's hard to predict how District Judge Heather Coyle will rule on the motion. But the 2023 emails are explosive on their own – and could have a decisive impact on the case regardless of her decision. Under the terms of the deal, Glossip would have been eligible for immediate release. It's hard to imagine how Drummond's office can proceed with a murder trial after agreeing that Glossip should already be free.
'General Drummond has publicly stated that 'a handshake is my word, and my word is my bond,'' Glossip's lawyers wrote in their motion. 'On more than just a handshake—in fact by written acceptance—General Drummond promised to resolve this case.'