Oklahoma Gubernatorial Candidate Arrested On Kidnapping, Rape Charges

An independent gubernatorial candidate for Oklahoma has been arrested for allegedly kidnapping and raping a would-be campaign worker.

Paul Tay, the 58-year-old governor candidate, was arrested and charged with first-degree rape and kidnapping Monday after the woman reported him to police for attacking her on two separate occasions. He was also charged with assault with a dangerous weapon, the Tulsa Police Department said, according to CBS-affiliated KOTV-DT.

According to reports, Tay ran for mayor of Tulsa in 2020 but was unsuccessful.

Police said that the woman responded to a Craigslist ad for a job on Tay’s campaign team Sunday. Later that day, the woman was picked up by Tay since she did not have a car. Instead of taking the woman to Oklahoma City where the campaign team was based, Tay drove towards Tulsa, police said.

"When Paul Tay picks her up and starts driving her towards Tulsa, she was confused and put off by that. She tried to get out of the car and states when she tied to get out, Paul Tay took a metal pipe and struck her in the pelvis area,” Lieutenant Darin Ehrenrich with the Tulsa Police Special Victims Unit was quoted as saying by KOTV-DT.

Documents said that the victim told police that Tay then sexually assaulted her. Eventually, Tay’s car ran out of gas so he locked the woman inside the car while he panhandled some gas money to fill his tank, police said in a statement on Facebook.

According to the woman, Tay then drove her to his house in Tulsa, where he tried to have sex with her and then raped her with a pipe.

"It's terrifying. I can't imagine what the victim went through. Number one, being brutally assaulted while trying to get out of a car, and the statement she has made is this is an absolutely horrifying crime,” Ehrenrich said.

According to a KFOR report, the woman managed to convince Tay to take her to a Walmart on Monday so she could get some hygiene products. While inside the store, she informed a store employee that she was being held against her will, the report said. The employee then called police and Tay was arrested from a store parking lot near 31st and Harvard.

Police said that the victim’s clothes were found inside Tay’s house.

Tay had announced in June that he will be running for the 2022 Oklahoma gubernatorial election.