Department of Justice
For Immediate Release
Gore Resident Sentenced for Accessory After the Fact to Kidnapping
MUSKOGEE, Okla. — The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma announced that Tristen Riley Cawhorn, 26, of Gore, Oklahoma, was sentenced to 38 months in prison for accessory after the fact to kidnapping.
The charges arose from an investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Muskogee County Sheriff’s Office and the Muskogee Police Department.
On March 21, 2023, Cawhorn pleaded guilty to one count of accessory after the fact to kidnapping. According to investigators, in September 2021, Cawhorn assisted Patrick Wayne McHenry in a kidnapping, allowing McHenry to lock the victim in a shed on her property and alerting McHenry when the victim attempted to escape.
On Dec. 21, 2022, McHenry was convicted by a federal jury in the Eastern District of Oklahoma for conspiracy to commit kidnapping, kidnapping, carjacking, robbery in Indian country, and the carry/use of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.
The crime occurred in Muskogee County, within the boundaries of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Reservation, in the Eastern District of Oklahoma.
The Honorable Ronald A. White, Chief Judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, presided over the hearing. Cawhorn will remain in the custody of the U.S. Marshals, pending transportation to a designated U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to serve a non-paroleable sentence of incarceration.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Erin Cornell represented the United States at sentencing.
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