MUSKOGEE –Jimcy McGirt, 76, of Wewoka, entered a guilty plea to one count of Failure to Register as Sex Offender, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, according to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma.

The Indictment alleged that on May 2, 2024, McGirt was convicted of Aggravated Sexual Abuse of a Minor in Indian Country in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma and that from August 25, 2024, until August 31, 2024, McGirt knowingly failed to register that he was residing in a home, either temporarily or permanently, within a two-thousand foot radius of any playground or park.

The charge arose from an investigation by the United States Marshals Service. The Honorable Gerald L. Jackson, U.S. Magistrate Judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, accepted the plea and ordered the completion of a presentence investigation report. A U.S. District Court Judge will determine the sentence to be imposed after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

McGirt will remain in the custody of the United States Marshals Service pending sentencing.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sarah McAmis and Nicole Paladino represented the United States.

McGirt, a Native American, gained national attention in 2020 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that his conviction on sexual assault charges were unconstitutional because the alleged crimes took place in Indian Country over which state courts had no jurisdiction in certain cases.

In 1997 he was convicted in Wagoner County District Court of first-degree rape by instrumentation, lewd molestation and forcible sodomy, involving a four-year-old girl, and given two 500- year sentences and life without parole.

McGirt appealed his conviction to the United States Supreme Court.

The Court stated that McGirt was a member of the Seminole Nation and that the crimes took place on the Creek Nation Reservation, which had never been “disestablished.”

Hundreds of inmates and others facing trial immediately began filing motions based on the McGirt decision, claiming the state had no jurisdiction over them.