OK Police Chief Resigns Over Nude Pics of His Wife

The police chief of Snyder, Oklahoma, is fed up. Chief Tod Ozmun knew his wife had been posing nude for an adult website, but he didn’t have a problem with it until pictures of his wife began circulating around town. Doris Ozmun is known worldwide for her photographs as a plus-sized model on a pornographic website.

Local residents were outraged and many called for the police chief’s resignation because they said his morals did not match the morals of the town. Shirley Anderson, who served as the mayor of Snyder for five years, and whose husband was the mayor for eight years before that, has been critical of the chief and his wife on other occasions. "They have no morals, as far as I’m concerned, Anderson said. "That’s the whole thing, I think—morals. You should have respectable people in office. They need to go somewhere else where this is accepted."

Ozmun and his wife may be doing just that, because on Friday he resigned from office, along with the mayor and a councilman who both were criticized for supporting him. The three said that they are fed up with all the public hoopla. "This has turned into a media circus," Ozmun said. "I don’t feel like me staying in office is going to benefit my department or my staff. This has turned into a mess. This is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous."

Mayor Dale Moore was asked by dozens of residents to fire the police chief, but he decided not to because he thought doing so would not be good for the town. "We will take no action on Chief Ozmun," Moore said earlier this week. "He was not involved in these, and he has broken no laws. He’s done more drug arrests, solved more crimes than anybody else in town has ever done." Moore believed it was better for the town not to fire a man who was actively keeping residents safe.

However, the controversy did not die, and even intensified. A prosecutor had called for an investigation, but the City Council decided last week that Doris Ozmun had a constitutional right to have her pictures posted nude on the Internet. Bryan Norton, a resident of Snyder, told reporters that he was one of the people who wanted the chief fired. "When our kids come home from school telling us that the chief’s wife is a porno queen, how do you answer that?" he said.

When Mayor Moore resigned in support of Ozmun, he told reporters, "I think this is wrong and I won’t put up with it. I don’t want to work in a community like this." Clifford Barnard, the councilman who resigned, issued a statement, which was read by Ozmun. "The citizens’ concerns that we were not enforcing religious and moral beliefs was very heartfelt and I don’t want to be associated with their moral or religious beliefs because I’ve never read anywhere in the Good Book that the Lord wanted us to persecute those that did not hold the same morals or values," his statement read.

Doris Ozmun was paroled in March 2005 after spending two years in a state prison for drug-related charges. Earlier this week she released a statement in her own defense, to attempt to quell the attacks against her husband. "Hi, my name is Doris Ozmun. I am a 43-year-old adult model. I am in no way affiliated with the Snyder Police Department other than the fact I am married to the chief of police, Tod Ozmun. The website I am featured on is in no way affiliated with the Snyder Police Department nor the city of Snyder. I have done nothing illegal, and it is my First Amendment right of the Constitution. You do not have to like or agree with what I do for me to be protected by the First Amendment right."

When the chief spoke with reporters about his decision to resign, he said that his decision was based on the fact that the whole issue had been blown out of proportion. "People in this country do what she does on a daily basis," he said. "It’s absolutely ludicrous. Makes no sense at all."

Ozmun said that he has spoken with his wife on numerous occasions about posting her nude photos on the Internet, but he cannot tell her what to do. "My wife is 6’3" and weighs 300 pounds," he said. "If there’s somebody that thinks they can control her, have at it. I have tried for 11 years and haven’t been able to."