State Treasurer Deborah Goldberg said she fired Shannon O’Brien as the state’s top cannabis regulator last year because she would “bully, humiliate, and abuse her colleagues,” and “cavalierly” and repeatedly made racially insensitive remarks, according to newly released documents.
Goldberg detailed her reasons for terminating O’Brien in an 80-page report made public Thursday, offering, for the first time, a more comprehensive accounting of her decision, which has been subject to months of litigation and political intrigue.
Goldberg, a third-term Democrat, pointed to examples of O’Brien making racially inappropriate comments to staff, some of which had not been publicly aired before.
She also made clear that O’Brien’s treatment of Shawn Collins, the Cannabis Control Commission’s first executive director and a former assistant treasurer under Goldberg, weighed heavily in her decision.
Goldberg said that O’Brien “deprived [Collins] of a graceful exit from the Commission,” pointing to O’Brien publiclyannouncing at a July meeting that Collins was planning to resign before he was “ready to make that announcement.”
She said O’Brien also pressured Collins to resign before he planned to leave and called her conduct toward the former director “petty and vindictive.”
Collins’ name is redacted from the copy of the report, but Goldberg’s description of O’Brien’s public comments and events made clear it was in reference to the former executive director.
A spokesperson for O’Brien on Thursday accused Goldberg of filing an incomplete version of events, and alleged she was opting to “operate in the shadows of darkness.”
“Shannon O’Brien looks forward to her day in court and the opportunity to finally and publicly clear her good name,” said Joe Baerlein, a spokesperson for O’Brien,
O’Brien in November appealed her termination, alleging in court filings that she was ousted from the regulatory agency unfairly. She claims she was terminated fortrying to make much-needed changes at the commission.
“I understand that it can be challenging to change a government agency, but Chair O’Brien cannot use the excuse of being a ‘change agent’ to bully, humiliate, and abuse her colleagues, much less to interfere with their leave rights,” Goldberg wrote in her report. “Nor can she shrug off objectively racially insensitive conduct as the ‘weaponization of HR claims’ against her.”
Goldberg fired O’Brien in September after a yearlong suspension, concluding thatO’Brien “committed gross misconduct” and “demonstrated she is unable to discharge the powers and duties” during her tenure.
Goldberg had appointed O’Brien just two years earlier, tapping the former treasurer and one-time Democratic nominee for governor for a five-year term atop the commission.
Goldberg had previously declined to release a copy of the 80-page report detailing her reasons for firing O’Brien. The state’s attorney general’s office filed a redacted copy of the report Wednesday in response to a court order, and released it publicly on Thursday.
Baerlein, O’Brien’s spokesperson,described Thursday’s report as “partisan and unproven findings,” and said she is seeking to have more documents released publicly.
Goldberg on Wednesday also filed a motion to impound other unredacted records. Baerlein, O’Brien’s spokesperson, alleged Thursday thatshe is trying to conceal her “flawed and biased process from the public.”
O’Brien had unsuccessfully tried to submit a 1,700-page appendix with her court documents, which included Goldberg’s 80-page report and an array of other documents. A judge last month blocked it from the court record.
“She released a redacted version of her decision to fire Shannon O’Brien, but hides thousands of pages of testimony and exhibits,” Baerlein said in a statement Thursday. Goldberg, he added, “is making a mockery of the public’s right to know” and “continues to hide the facts, creating mischief and hoping no one will notice her behavior.”
Among the allegations Goldberg previously cited in suspending O’Brien was an instance in which O’Brien referred to “a person of Asian heritage” during a fall 2022 meeting, saying, “I guess you’re not allowed to say ‘yellow’ anymore.”
A spokesperson for O’Brien has said that she denied making the comment, andO’Brien’s attorneys have written in court filings that the investigator’s conclusion lacked crucial context. O’Brien said she was simply repeating a conversation she had with an unidentified “well-known and respected African-American real estate developer,” who said a particular project would affect “Black, brown, and yellow people.”
Goldberg, in her 80-page report, said that regardless of the context, “government leaders simply cannot do that.” Goldberg also cited other conduct, saying O’Brien yelled at the commission’s staff about howthey handled questions about her ties to an outdoor marijuana farm.
She said O’Brien’s “habit of asking successful Black women if they know other successful Black women conveys an objectively race-based limitation” on them and their capabilities.
O’Brien’s fellow Commissioner Nurys Camargo Camargo, who is of Dominican Colombian descent, told investigators that O’Brien once commented that she personally didn’t know state Senator Lydia Edwards, who is Black, but told Camargo that “you probably know her.”
“Some might call it a ‘micro-aggression,’” Goldberg wrote. “I find it unacceptable.”
Goldberg’s report also charged that O’Brien once commented that a Black staff member “does not have a trace of an accent” and that she questioned whether the staffer was born in the United States. (O’Brien told Goldberg she had no recollection of making the remark.)
Goldberg alleged that even during closed-door meetings during which O’Brien could challenge her initial suspension, that O’Brien made other“ethnicity-focused” remarks.
According to the report, O’Brien’s attorney had at one point accidentally mixed up O’Brien’s name and someone else’s, which is redacted from the report. The mistake prompted O’Brien to interject, “You’re getting all us Irish people mixed up,” according to Goldberg’s report.
“While intended to be humorous, in the context of a proceeding focused in part on whether she makes racially inappropriate comments, her ethnicity-focused remark reflected a shocking insensitivity to the issues at hand,” Goldberg wrote.
Much of O’Brien’s appeal challenges the recollection of interactions she had with members of the commission’s staff, including Collins and Camargo.
The complaint claims that Goldberg, during a series of closed-door hearings reviewing the incidents, did not find O’Brien “credible or believe her evidence” and that she “ignored the investigators’ testimony that there was no finding of intent.”
Her lawsuit is pending in Suffolk County Superior Court.
The saga has proven to be a costly one. Goldberg’s office reportedly paid the firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius more than $970,000 in legal fees since the start oflast year amid the long-running fight.
The Cannabis Control Commission itself has weathered months of problems beyond O’Brien’s situation. In December, it chose Holliston town manager Travis Ahern to be its next executive director, closing out a tumultuous, months-long search. The commission last year faced multiple allegations of harboring a toxic work culture and calls by the state Inspector General to place it in receivership.
Diti Kohli of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Matt Stout can be reached at matt.stout@globe.com. Follow him @mattpstout.
State Treasurer Deborah Goldberg detailed her reasons for terminating Shannon O’Brien in an 80-page report made public Thursday, offering, for the first time, a more comprehensive accounting of her decision, which has been subject to months of litigation and political intrigue. Read More
