Inset left: Aaron Oldham (Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office). Inset right: Christine Hillier (Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office). Background: Oklahoma County Detention Center (Google Maps).
An Oklahoma man is facing accusations of impersonating a lawyer at a local jail to meet with his incarcerated girlfriend.
Aaron Oldham, 41, visited the Oklahoma County Detention Center in Oklahoma City on Monday, allegedly seeking to have power of attorney documents signed by his girlfriend, 41-year-old Christine Hillier. According to a probable cause affidavit reviewed by Law&Crime, Oldham approached the facility’s visitation area, claiming to be Hillier’s legal representative.
The affidavit notes that he described Hillier as his client and mentioned, “We are trained in patients,” alluding to his supposed legal expertise.
Upon gaining access, Oldham entered the attorney visitation room where he met Hillier. Together, they proceeded to fill out the power of attorney documents.
If anything seemed amiss to the staff, it likely did moments later when Oldham and Hillier allegedly began “hugging and kissing.”
According to jail records, Hillier had been in custody since October 6, after being arrested on a warrant from Nevada.
After their meeting, Oldham left the jail, but he was later arrested for false personation when investigators said they realized he didn’t have a license to practice law. He allegedly “stated that he understood why he was being arrested but he believed he had attorney client privilege with his girlfriend.”
Court records show an affidavit of probable cause was filed against him on Tuesday.
However, he claimed the situation was a “misunderstanding.”
“It’s a silly misunderstanding, and I will never interact with that system again, hopefully,” Oldham told local NBC affiliate KFOR. “I’m a very law-abiding person. … I trust the U.S. legal system.”
Local defense attorney Ed Blau told the TV station that he has visited the jail hundreds of times in his career and “I’ve never seen a situation where somebody out of the blue showed up and pretended to either be a bonds person or an attorney.”
Authorities attributed the apparent mix-up to a mistake from a staffer and a lack of funding.
The Oklahoma County Detention Center said in a statement that “an individual recently presented himself at the jail claiming to be an attorney in order to visit an inmate. A staff member did not follow established verification procedures, allowing the individual access.”
“Once the breach was discovered, investigators obtained a warrant, and the individual was arrested at a residence in Oklahoma City,” the statement added. “The staff member involved has been disciplined, and all staff assigned to the attorney visitation area have received retraining to reinforce our existing policies and prevent this from happening again.”
