In the Matter of Slobodan Subasic vs. Everyone Else in the World
Another shoe drops in the strange and twisted tale of "Bourbongate."
Since it is one of the rules of journalism that reporters don’t divulge sources, I cannot tell you how it happened that Multnomah Circuit Court case 24CV06074 came to appear in my in-box. Let’s face it: the world is full of mysteries.
It was filed on Monday at 10:11 AM…
…and it is the latest twist in the strange, sordid tale that came to be known as “Bourbongate.”
For a few weeks, it kept the state’s press busy detailing (and here we start getting complicated) how certain people at the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Control Commission (hereinafter OLCC), along with assorted pols and civilian supplicants got a certain number of hyper-expensive bottles of top-shelf bourbon “diverted” for them to purchase.
For, we might add, ridiculous prices that only goofy bourbon-aficionados would pay. Nothing was stolen. If you can find a “victim” for this skulduggery, please let us know.
The scandal was somehow rooted out by one of the Oregonian’s head-hunters, Noelle Crombie, and dropped in February, ‘23, under the headline…
Top OLCC officials kept popular booze -- including Pappy Van Winkle -- for themselves, diverting it from public
It started a media pile-on and when the smoke finally cleared, the entire top executive ranks of the OLCC had been mowed down by newly-inaugurated Governor Tina Kotek.
Justice—or something—served.
Reporter Crombie milked the story for weeks and signed off with…
…which Slobodan Subasic did.1 Which probably sets a record for bureaucrats making good on their threats.
It should be noted that Subasic—”Bobo” in the Oregonian’s stories—ran the OLCC’s IT department. Pretty remote from the warehouse and the seedy little mom-n-pop stores where the citizenry buys the hard stuff.
But there he was, getting his Warholian 15-minutes of fame: a “diverter.” For which he got fired. Bye-bye $162,000 a year job
If you wade through attorney Shawn O’Neil’s2 complaint—40 pages— replete with legalisms, citations, pleas, and eleven (count ‘em) claims for relief, you would find that Subasic believes that the laundry list of defendants owes him $6-million for all sorts of violations, ranging from violations of the 14th Amendment to “Defendants’ actions constituted an extraordinary transgression of the bounds of socially tolerable conduct.”
By the way, the suit points out that Subasic is confined to a wheelchair suffering from Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type 3, and was fired by the state of Oregon while on leave for a medical condition caused by being investigated, which figures in his “Fifth claim for relief:—Oregon Family Leave Act—Discrimination.”
This being a state governed by a longstanding political machine, the scandal unearthed by the Oregonian’s Crombie makes the “diversions” look like a tea-party compared to the raucous political brawl going on upstairs.
Here’s the back-story that emerges from the convoluted suit—and remember, these are allegations…
A disgruntled OLCC warehouse employee complains to the commission’s Human Resources department in 2022 that a co-worker has “assaulted” him…
…and when his complaint goes unanswered, he files a “rant” that charges that “other higher ups” in the agency are getting bottles of booze set aside for them…
…whereupon the complaining person disappears, both from the OLCC and the record…
…while the OLCC HR director enlists one of her staffers (with no background in investigations) to look into it…
…which causes an even higher-up (the OLCC’s director of licensing) to step in to “oversee” the nascent probe…
…which is quickly limited to only investigating Executive staff employees…
…no reasons given…
…although any employee at any level at the OLCC has been making these “customer requests”…
…for over 40 years…
…including Slobodan Subasic…
…who is ratted out by parties unknown…
…and gets called in for a chat, where he claims)he was guaranteed “confidentiality” by his inquisitors…
…during which he somehow forgets to request the presence of an attorney…
…as the state’s opaque Department of Administrative Services (DAS) gets wind of the investigation and horns-in…
…at which point mid-level bureaucrats began running around like chipmunks under the shadow of a Cooper’s hawk…
…since the fearsome Tina Kotek has just won the Democratic party primary, which means she will be the next governor…
…since general elections don’t count…
…and who telegraphs a purge of the bureaucracy in her inaugural address…
…and who is well known for (whatever arcane reason) hating OLCC director Steve Marks…
…who, within days GuvTina’s inauguration, is forced to quit…
…which gets the attention of any of the executives Marks has hired…
…whereupon reporter Crombie shows up in Salem with a “Freedom of Information” act request to see an obscure investigation that had been conducted far from the public eye almost a year before…
…making one wonder who tipped off Crombie…
…who will never, ever divulge a source on pain of expulsion from the journalists’ guild…
…which request causes normally torpid bureaucrats who take eons to respond to FOI’s (and who cannot divulge “Documents about employee disciplinary measures” according to the law)…
..who the next day give Subasic (in the suit’s words) “2.5 hours to present his legal position…
…and, on the same day, dump the entire OLCC investigation files, including recordings of Subasic implicating himself, into Crombie’s lap…
…which is followed minutes later by Kotek’s letter to the OLCC which accuses top executives of “abusing their position for personal gain”…
…although Kotek claims she fired Marks before she knew of the investigation…
…which you can believe. Or not…
…which is followed by the forced resignation of OLCC Commission chair Paul Rosenblum…
…followed by other heads rolling merrily…
…including Subasic’s…
…and here we are.
We predict it will be a tricky trial (if it ever gets that far), starting with the assertion by Subasic that he was promised “confidentiality” by the investigators.
In Salem? Who’s kidding who?
It starts to sound like a classic case of “he said/ she said,” and will prompt some tough cross-examinations…
Did the various investigators actually give Subasic assurances that the investigation would remain “confidential?”
Did they have the authority to make such a promise?
What the hell does “confidential” actually mean?
Hovering over all…
Why did a guy smart enough to run an IT operation spill the beans?
If Subasic ever takes the stand, his answers will be interesting.
Of course, there’s another suspicion: this isn’t really a suit seeking damages—it’s a parting shot fired from the defeated OLCC’s “old boy network” against the governor and the Oregonian. Whose reporter modestly characterized her series of stories as “blockbuster findings.”
In point of fact, the “blockbuster” didn’t have legs.
It’s hard to imagine that Mr. and Mrs Oregon, pondering their ever-mounting tax bills, drug crazies on their streets, climate change, unpunished crime, getting excited about diverted bottles of booze they couldn’t possibly afford.
Mortgages tend to trump manias.
A careful read of the blockbuster revealed that the folks who got the bottles paid for them—although Crombie was quick to add that the bourbons “fetch top dollar on the secondary, or illegal, liquor market,” without proving that anyone who got the hooch did, indeed, sell them on.
Which, if it’s illegal must be news to Sotheby’s Auction House, which not long ago sold these 20 bottles of the prized Pappy Van Winkle…
…for $162,500.
In a final irony, Crombie reported…
…and actually admitted, for the first time in her coverage, that the OLCC had been running a “Chance to Purchase” (CCP) lottery for the prized bottles since 2018. Now—prompted by her blockbuster—there would be new rules to ensure no more hanky-panky…
The lotteries are open only to Oregon residents. One entry will be allowed per product up to a maximum of five, the new rules state. Only one winning entry per person will be allowed. People who attempt to enter the lottery using different names will be disqualified from the drawing.
It will be interesting if the reformers at the OLCC preserve the program’s former carve-outs (quoting from the Subasic suit)…
The DSP allocated a portion of its limited and rare distilled spirits inventory within its warehouses to account for unforeseen losses or shortages that could occur during the CPP lottery.
Uh-huh.
This was called “Safety Stock.” After the lucky winners picked up their rare booze, the remaining bottles (the suit doesn’t mention any numbers) went back into the warehouse.
It was only at this point that the DSP would fulfill stakeholder requests, including those made by its employees, from the general inventory.
Reporter Crombie, true to form, didn’t ask if there will be any “Safety Stock” under the new regime. What do you wanna bet?
In any event, Bourbongate was quickly swamped by the unfolding Shemia Fagan “Moonlighting for a couple of dodgy marijuana shysters” scandal. Worst of all for the Oregonian’s blockbuster, it was being beaten by none other than WillyWeek’s Sophie Peel, who collected Fagan’s scalp on May 2.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose…
We turned to one of our sources—you’ll have to guess—who is a longtime player in the political game, and, well…a bit of a cynic—for the coda.
“Virtually all these people are worthless and corrupt.
“As alluded to, the real reason for the sudden come-to-Jesus actions by new Gov. Kotek is that a group of people who didn't like Marks and his crew were also upset at the pass that was being given the OLCC’s ‘legal marijuana’ program. The couple behind La Mota were being treated like royalty and when that blew up, many of Shemia's supporters were looking for an outside scandal to take the heat off.
“So squeaky clean Oregon had petty corruption going on at OLCC with the hoarding of this high-end sipping whiskey, but Brown and Kotek were much more afraid of the damage that can (and hopefully will be done) as a result of the La Mota scandal. Thus far, nobody has been charged even though every major Democratic officeholder in Oregon accepted dirty pot money in paper bags.
“The Feds act verrrrry slowly, but in a year or two I expect Shemia to be indicted, maybe others.”
One final question, left unanswered in the suit: how many bottles did Subasic actually “divert?”
We turn to yet another source who’s in a position to know:
Over a period of 5 years, there were maybe 4 bottles. Paid full price for all of them never got any for free never sold any for profit never diverted any of them . Same thing is true for all other defendants fired by Gov. Never got any for free paid full price for every bottle they received.
We await the next bombshell…
In fact, he was fired.
An oddity: a plaintiff’s attorney who doesn’t return press phone calls. So much for salting the venue.
All I can think reading this (As the Oregon Government Turns) is that Oregon taxpayers would save a heck of a lot of money if there were no Oregon Liquor Control Commission.
Seems unless Mr. Subasic has some previously undisclosed dirt I believe he is well and truly screwed. Still waiting to find out who the legislators and other" certain people" are that received diverted bottles. This state is more fun than Louisianna.