(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Due to an apparent technicality, a federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a man convicted in 2019 for plotting to bomb a bank in Oklahoma City.
The convicted OKC bomb plotter, Jerry Drake Varnell, filed a lawsuit last December, claiming that he has been sexually assaulted by fellow inmates and abused by prison staff.
In that lawsuit, Varnell was supposed to disclose his previous history of litigation. However, he failed to do so, which is why the judge dismissed his case last month. Varnell claimed that his lack of disclosure was a mistake, but the judge tossed his case anyway.
The judge said Varnell can refile his case.
Varnell’s conviction represents a classic case of terrorism manufactured by undercover FBI informants and agents.
Indeed, the FBI initially determined that Varnell, who is schizophrenic, “does not appear to have the means to actually commit this act.” Nevertheless, in 2017 the FBI had an informant introduce him to an undercover agent, who provided him with a van, barrels, a burner phone, latex gloves, electrical tape, and 1,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate fuel oil.
The agent then picked Varnell up from his house, drove him to a storage unit, and gave him step-by-step instructions on how to assemble an explosive device using the materials the FBI supplied. After that, the undercover agent insisted that Varnell be the one to drive the van downtown, where he was arrested after attempting to detonate the bomb.
I learned today that ex-FBI agent Barry Black wasn't just involved in Waco and OKC. He finished his career w/ another OKC bomb plot–one w/ entrapment tactics so egregious that it would make the Whitmer case agents blush.
For example: https://t.co/e7pszfhggo pic.twitter.com/6X6gDPqgvs— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) February 11, 2026
Despite those factors, Varnell was convicted in early 2019, and sentenced to 25 years in prison in March 2020.
According to his Dec. 22 lawsuit, in September 2022 he was placed in a cell with an “Afro-American, homosexual male named Deshaun Sellers.” Varnell said he was sexually assaulted by Sellers, who allegedly threatened to kill him if he told anyone.
Varnell still decided to file a complaint, and he was transferred to another unit. However, he said he had a similar experience with another inmate, J. McFadden.
Varnell was again transferred. But this time, he said prison officials saw that he was wearing nipple rings, and forced him to have them removed.
According to the lawsuit, a prison official used plastic sheers, which “tore Plaintiff’s nipple and areolas.”
Additionally, Varnell said he had to shower in front of prison officers, medical staff and other inmates, which further traumatized him.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
