No criminal charges in rare liquor probe at Oregon alcohol agency, state report says

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to resign, state justice officials said Monday. In February 2023, the Oregon Department of Justice began investigating whether employees of the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission improperly used their positions to obtain bottles of top-shelf bourbon for personal use.

The department reviewed thousands of documents and emails, and interviewed dozens of people, including current and former commission employees and liquor store agents. It concluded it did not have sufficient evidence to prove the criminal offenses it had considered — official misconduct and misuse of confidential information — beyond a reasonable doubt.

In a report released Monday, the department said that “even though the employees’ behavior may have breached ethical standards, there is no explicit policy prohibiting the specific conduct, we found no evidence of relevant training, and the practice appears to have been longstanding and endorsed by at least one executive director." The findings were announced in a news release from Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, who described the investigation as thorough and said it was “critical that Oregonians have trust in our state agencies, their leaders and employees." Justice officials launched the probe last year after news outlets obtained via public records requests an internal investigation by the agency that concluded its then-Executive Director Steve Marks and five other agency officials had diverted sought-after bourbons, including Pappy Van Winkle's 23-year-old whiskey, for personal use. Officials were paying for the whiskey, which can cost thousands of dollars a bottle, but they had used their knowledge and connections at the commission to obtain them, and consequently deprived members of the