Wade Ryan Reeves v. Benjamin D. Aycock, Angela N. Monroe, and Courtney Najera

District Court, N.D. Oklahoma·Decided August 26, 2026·No. 4:25-cv-00677·Unknown

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA WADE RYAN REEVES, ) ) Plaintiff, ) ) v. ) Case No. 25-CV-677-CVE-SH ) BENJAMIN D. AYCOCK, ) ANGELA N. MONROE, and ) COURTNEY NAJERA, ) ) Defendants. ) OPINION AND ORDER Now before the Court are Benjamin D. Aycock’s motion to dismiss (Dkt. # 11) and Angela Monroe and Courtney Najera’s motion to dismiss (Dkt. # 19). Defendant Benjamin D. Aycock argues that he is a private attorney who represents plaintiff’s ex-wife in state court proceedings concerning the alleged underpayment of plaintiff’s child support obligation, and he is not a state actor for the purpose of plaintiff’s claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Dkt. # 11. Defendants Angela Monroe and Courtney Najera contend that they are attorneys for the Oklahoma Department of Human Services (DHS), and that plaintiff’s allegations do not support a claim that they violated plaintiff’s Fourteenth Amendment rights. Dkt. # 19. Monroe and Najera also invoke Younger abstention1 and the Rooker-Feldman doctrine.2 Plaintiff’s responses to the motions to dismiss focus primarily on defendants’ alleged misstatements concerning the procedural history of state court contempt proceedings against plaintiff, and he argues that defendants’ use of state court contempt 1 Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971). 2 Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923); District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983). proceedings to coerce his compliance with an invalid child support order violates his right to substantive and procedural due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. I. Plaintiff states that he currently resides in Glenpool, Oklahoma, but he formerly lived in

California with his ex-wife, Alisha Gregorio.3 Dkt. # 2, at 3. Plaintiff alleges he entered a settlement agreement with Gregorio to resolve their divorce, and the state courts of California entered a final judgment in the parties’ divorce proceedings. Id. at 4-5. Gregorio sought and obtained a modification of plaintiff’s child support obligation in California, and the judgment, including the modified child support obligation, was registered in Tulsa County District Court. Id. at 5. Plaintiff objected to the registration of the judgment in Oklahoma courts, but he acknowledges that the state court overruled his objection and registered the California judgment. Id. Gregorio retained

Oklahoma counsel, Benjamin Aycock, and Aycock filed an application for contempt against plaintiff in Tulsa County District Court. Id. at 5-6. In October 2023, the Oklahoma Department of Human Services (DHS) entered an appearance in the contempt proceedings, and plaintiff’s allegations suggest that the contempt proceedings had been stayed prior to DHS’s entry into the case. Id. at 6. DHS attorney Angela Monroe filed a motion to lift the stay and resume contempt proceedings

3 The Court is relying on the allegations of the complaint to summarize the procedural history of other judicial proceedings relevant to this case, and defendants also relied on these allegations when filing motions to dismiss. Plaintiff’s responses to the motions to dismiss fault defendants for misstating the sequence of events and procedural history, and he has attached additional documents to his responses concerning the proceedings in California and Oklahoma courts. The Court finds that defendants appropriately relied on plaintiff’s allegations, rather than evidence outside of the pleadings, when filing their motions to dismiss, and the Court will also confine its review of plaintiff’s claims to the allegations raised in his complaint, unless otherwise stated, for facts occurring after the filing of the complaint. 2 against plaintiff, and plaintiff alleges that Monroe and Aycock were jointly representing Gregorio in the state court contempt proceedings. Id. at 7. In August 2024, Aycock and Monroe submitted a pretrial conference order in the contempt proceedings, and the presiding judge entered the pretrial conference order. Id. at 7. Plaintiff alleges

that Aycock filed a second application for contempt against plaintiff based on the non-payment of attorney fees, and the second application sought penalties such as incarceration and fines to compel compliance with a court order to pay attorney fees. Id. In September 2024, DHS attorney Courtney Najera filed notice requiring plaintiff to appear for a court hearing, and the notice advised plaintiff that a bench warrant could be issued if he failed to appear at the hearing. Id. at 8. Najera also filed a motion in limine asking the state court to prohibit plaintiff from raising “jurisdictional challenges and defenses relating to the validity and enforcement of the foreign judgment.”4 Id. The state court

held a status conference in December 2025 in the original contempt proceedings, and plaintiff did not appear at the hearing. Id. The state court issued a bench warrant for plaintiff’s arrest due to his failure to appear at the hearing, and the state court ordered that the contempt proceedings continue to a jury trial. Id. at 9. Plaintiff has supplemented the allegations of the complaint with additional information about the status of the contempt proceedings, and he states that the contempt proceedings are now closed. Plaintiff claims that the state court lacked jurisdiction to proceed with the contempt proceedings, and he declined to appear at a jury trial held on March 2, 2026 in the original contempt proceedings

4 Plaintiff relies on the filing of this motion in limine throughout his briefing in an attempt to show that he was prevented from fully presenting a defense in the state court proceeding. However, he has not disclosed whether the motion in limine was granted and it appears he continued to the challenge the state court’s jurisdiction throughout the contempt proceedings. 3 concerning underpayment of child support. Dkt. # 27, at 6. The state court entered a default judgment against plaintiff and issued a warrant for plaintiff’s arrest. Id. Plaintiff filed a motion to vacate the default judgment alleging that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to proceed with the jury trial in March 2026. Id. Plaintiff argued that the state trial court lacked jurisdiction to set the March

2026 jury trial, because the trial court issued the order setting the trial prior to receiving a mandate from the Oklahoma Supreme Court in one of plaintiff’s interlocutory appeals. Id. at 4-7. Aycock filed a motion to withdraw as counsel of record, and plaintiff states that the motion was granted with the condition that the case would be dismissed without prejudice if Gregorio failed to enter a pro se appearance or obtain new counsel. Id. at 7. Plaintiff claims that the deadline has passed Gregorio has not entered a pro se appearance or obtained new counsel. Id. The documents provided by plaintiff show that Aycock received leave to withdraw from the contempt proceedings following

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Wade Ryan Reeves v. Benjamin D. Aycock, Angela N. Monroe, and Courtney Najera, (N.D. Okla. 2026).

Wade Ryan Reeves v. Benjamin D. Aycock, Angela N. Monroe, and Courtney Najera (Wade Ryan Reeves v. Benjamin D. Aycock, Angela N. Monroe, and Courtney Najera) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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