MUSKOGEE, OKLAHOMA — This is an official press release from the U.S. Department of Justice (Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)), published as received.
MUSKOGEE, OKLAHOMA – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma announced that Michael Wayne Lambert, age 56, of Weleetka, Oklahoma, was sentenced to Life in prison for one count of Murder in Indian Country, and ten years in prison for one count of Use, Carry, Brandish and Discharge of a Firearm During and in Relation to a Crime of Violence. The Court ordered the terms to be served consecutively.
The charges arose from an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Okemah Police Department, and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.
On September 11, 2025, Lambert was found guilty by a federal jury at trial. According to investigators, in the early morning hours of June 30, 2024, Lambert shot the victim multiple times on the stairs of an Okemah apartment complex, fled, then discarded the murder weapon off the side of the Bearden River Bridge into the North Canadian River. There, investigators recovered a Ruger 9mm from the riverbank that matched the shell casings recovered from the crime scene.
The crimes occurred in Okfuskee County, within the boundaries of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Reservation, in the Eastern District of Oklahoma.
The Honorable Ronald A. White, Senior Judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, presided over the hearing. Lambert will be held in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service pending transportation to a designated United States Bureau of Prisons facility to serve non-paroleable sentences of incarceration.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Lewis M. Reagan and Ryan Conway represented the United States.
