ABC ATTORNEY WHO RESIGNED NAMED AS INTERIM DIRECTOR - ABC IN TURMOIL OVER SHAKE UP ACCORDING TO SOURCES
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| MARY ROBIN CASTEEL - SHE QUIT THE ABC AND THEN WAS APPOINTED INTERIM DIRECTOR |
Mary Robin Casteel, who submitted her resignation from the Arkansas Alcoholic Beverage Control Division on May 19th is staying on to serve as the agency's interim director.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced Friday that Mary Robin Casteel had agreed to stay on and temporarily head the agency after Bud Roberts announced his resignation as its director effective June 15. Casteel and Milton Lueken another attorney for the board had submitted their resignations this month.
The 38-year-old Casteel joined the agency in 2013. ABC regulates the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages in Arkansas and will also regulate medical marijuana dispensaries and cultivation facilities under a constitutional amendment voters approved last year legalizing the drug for some patients.
The state Medical Marijuana Commission is set to begin accepting dispensary and cultivation facility applications in July.
Lueken told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that Roberts had been summoned to the Governor's office on Thursday and when he returned he told Lueken that he had been fired. Lueken said that Roberts cleared out his office of personal belongings and left.
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| MILTON LUEKEN - THE OTHER ABC ATTORNEY WHO ALSO RESIGNED |
J.R. Davis, the Governors spin doctor, when informed of what Lueken had said, denied that Roberts was fired or asked to resign.
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| J.R. DAVIS |
Shenanigans.
Roberts turned out to be a decent director who treated applicants with respect and did not deserve the poorly handled treatment of a one-term Governor (we say that because when all those Arkansas voters lose their insurance coverage, he won't be able to get elected dog catcher of Dogpatch).
The one individual at the ABC that should be fired and run out of the state is tainted ABC Enforcement Director Boyce Hamlet.
Hamlet holds no active law enforcement certification from the State of Arkansas, which is a requirement to hold the position; he does not have the required knowledge and experience that are required for the position. Hamlet has no experience whatsoever with supervising staff and preparing a budget for a state agency. Besides with his self-proclaimed learning disability involving mathematics (he could never pass college algebra and the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff had to waive that class in order for Hamlet to graduate), how the heck could could he ever develop a budget?
Hamlet has lied on every job application he has made after he was fired by the Arkansas State Police for cheating on an exam and then lying multiple times to ASP investigators.
Hamlet has put down so many false dates of employment at different agencies to cover up his hiring and firing by the ASP that he could not even answer simple questions about dates of employment when cross examined by the publisher of this blog in a hearing.
In that same hearing Hamlet admitted that he had issues with honesty and credibility. Something we have consistently stated since shortly after he was appointed.
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| TAINTED ABC ENFORCEMENT DIRECTOR BOYCE HAMLET |
In a hearing to obtain the ASP investigative report regarding the investigation of his cheating on an exam, the report that he and Attorney General Leslie Rutledge did not want the public to have access to, the judge after reading the report, immediately ordered its release to the published of this blog and stated that Hamlet's continued employment at the ABC posed serious problems for enforcement.
Read what the Judge Mackie Pierce said for yourself.
Any of the ABC Enforcement Agents that work under him have more actual qualifications to hold his position that he will ever have. And they are actually certified law enforcement officers.
Hamlet was the target of many complaints by state legislators when his enforcement agents raided several VFW Posts for gaming devices.
Hamlet went so far as to investigate a Chucky Cheese location and an indoor amusement park in northwest Arkansas for alleged gaming devices.
With the ABC having the added responsibility to deal with Medical Marijuana outlet licensing and enforcement issues and it's chief law enforcement officer (who is not certified, yet wears and badge and gun and has a fully automatic rifle in the truck of his state issued unmarked police car) with serious issues with honestly and credibility are facts the Governor needs to accept and realize that he was duped by Hamlet and send the little moron packing.