PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan’s decision to serve as a consultant for the one of the state’s largest marijuana dispensary companies while her office performed an audit on the state’s cannabis industry has many Oregonian’s raising their eyebrows. In the end that decision, and a subsequent ethics investigation, weighed heavily in her decision to resign Tuesday morning.
Fagan’s connection to the company La Mota was first revealed through Willamette Week’s reporting. KOIN 6 has learned of campaign contributions from the couple who owns La Mota to Shemia Fagan go back years.
Below is a timeline explaining when Fagan met La Mota’s owners, when they donated to her campaign, when she began working for them and when she terminated her contract.
2020 – During a media availability held Monday, May 1, 2023, Fagan told reporters she first met Aaron Mitchell and Rosa Cazares, the owners of the La Mota cannabis company, during a breakfast in 2020 while she was campaigning for secretary of state.
September 5, 2020 – April 26, 2021 – Mitchell makes five separate donations to Fagan’s campaign totaling $45,000.
November 3, 2020 – Fagan, a Democrat, defeats Republican candidate Kim Thatcher and is elected Oregon’s secretary of state.
January 4, 2021 – Fagan takes office as the Oregon secretary of state.
2021 – The Oregon Secretary of State’s Audits Division announces it will examine the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission’s regulatory oversight of the cannabis industry. The audit will be released in 2023.
February 2023 – Fagan told reporters she was “catching up socially” with Cazares in February when Cazares told her that Cazares’ company was looking to expand outside of Oregon and that Cazares needed to hire contractors to do research on the industry in the United States.
“This opportunity interested me because it was something I was highly qualified to do. Having gone to law school and been an attorney for a decade, I’m a very good researcher,” she said at the media availability on May 1.
February 24, 2023 – Fagan signs a contract to work for Veriede Holding LLC, an affiliate of the cannabis company La Mota. State records show Mitchell and Cazares are two of the owners of Veriede Holding.
February 2023 – Fagan says she recused herself from the audit that was being conducted on the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission’s regulation of the cannabis industry because she began her job with Veriede Holding LLC.
March 29, 2023 – Willamette Week reporter Sophie Peel publishes the cover story on La Mota, Mitchell and Cazares, and how the Oregon Department of Revenue has issued $1.6 million in tax liens against them since 2018. Willamette Week also reported the company and its owners owe $1.4 million in federal taxes.
April 27, 2023 – Willamette Week publishes an article confirming Fagan was hired by Veriede Holding LLC and pointed out that on April 28, the Audits Division, which is overseen by Fagan, will release an audit of the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission’s regulation of the cannabis industry.
April 27, 2023 – KOIN 6 News publishes a report confirming La Mota owners Mitchell and Cazares own a house they’ve left abandoned at Southeast 139th Avenue and East Burnside Street in Portland. 911 records show firefighters put out a half-dozen fires at the abandoned house. Neighbors Jacob and Beth Adams say the home has fallen into disrepair and it’s been the site of shootings and open drug use.
April 28, 2023 – La Mota owners Mitchell and Cazares issue an apology about the Southeast Portland property they’ve neglected and say they are “working as quickly as possible to demolish this structure and redevelop the property.”
April 28, 2023 – The Oregon Secretary of State’s Audits Division releases its audit of the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission’s regulation of the cannabis industry. Auditors stated that the OLCC can relax some rules it has in place for cannabis businesses.
“Though some of these requirements were initially put in place to minimize risk of federal intervention in Oregon’s system, the lack of federal intervention in Oregon’s system to date, the changing social and political environments, and increasing number of draft federal bills focused on cannabis reform led auditors to conclude the risk of federal intervention is increasingly unlikely,” the audit stated.
April 29, 2023 – Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek calls for an investigation after learning Fagan had voluntarily recused herself from the state audit on the cannabis industry. The governor cited a potential conflict of interest with Fagan’s paid consulting contract with Veriede Holding, LLC.
May 1, 2023 – Fagan terminates her contract with Veriede Holding, LLC and says she is sorry for harming the trust she’s worked to build with Oregonians. She said she only learned about the troubling allegations against the owners of Veriede Holding and La Mota through Willamette Week’s reporting.
“I made a mistake and I own it and I am sorry,” Fagan told the press.
May 2, 2023 – Fagan announces her resignation from her role as secretary of state. She says she will continue in her official duties until Monday, May 8. Fagan was expected to hold office until January 6, 2025.