Elderly Yukon Woman Traumatized After Deputies Raid Her Home During A Search Warrant

An elderly woman in Yukon is traumatized after deputies raid her home during a search warrant. According to her attorney, the warrant is tied to a more than 15-year-old civil matter.

Claudia Fox says her 76-year-old mother is in the process of resolving the civil suit concerning debt, but on Tuesday, she says her mother was treated like a criminal.

“It was just a nightmare,” Fox said. “She was distraught, emotionally.”

She says the Canadian County Sheriff’s Office busted the door in to execute a search warrant inside her mother Yukon’s home.

“To find two armed men standing in my mother's living room, you think the worst and it's awful for anybody to encounter that,” said Fox.

Fox says her mother was forced to sit in a chair while deputies searched her home, specifically her bedroom.

“Every corner of this home searching for things to take followed by taking her purse and taking social security money she had just cashed,” she said. 

According to court documents, the search was connected to a past debt in 2007, property the plaintiff claims was never recovered. The CCSO says while executing the search warrant, an auditor for the plaintiff was there to recover the property like her shoes, any clothing with tags on them, purses, and even her unopened gifts.

“The way that they came in here and treated my elderly mother was not appropriate not at all,” Fox said. 

The CCSO released this statement about the search:

“We submitted the court order to our district attorney's office for review. Their office advised the Oklahoma County judge had that authority in these kinds of cases. In an abundance of caution, we submitted an affidavit for the issuance of a search warrant for the property described in the Order for Issuance of Write of Execution from an Oklahoma County Judge to a Canadian County Judge, to insure we had the authority to execute the order. The Canadian County Judge signed the search warrant.”

We reached out to our legal analyst Irven Box who says in his 53 years of practice, he's never seen a search warrant issued in a civil case.

“Even though it's a rarity in civil cases it is something that is available by litigants to recover property,” said Irven Box, News 9 Legal Analyst.

However, Fox says it should have never happened.

“This is a civil case that was treated like a criminal case,” Fox said. “She's not a criminal.”

Claudia tells me her mother was taken to the hospital to undergo stress tests. She hopes to bring her home soon.

The CCSO added this comment on the forcible entry:

“When our deputy arrived at the house, he spent a substantial amount of time knocking on the house's doors and windows around the house to get the homeowner to answer the door. He didn't receive any response. He eventually forces opened the front door.”