Craig Prins Will Serve as Interim Director of the OLCC

Prins is currently the inspector general for the Oregon Department of Corrections. He will replace Steve Marks.

The OLCC supplies Oregon bars with liquor. (Christine Dong)
By Nigel Jaquiss

Gov. Tina Kotek is calling on a former prosecutor and veteran state agency manager to take over the troubled Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission, WW has learned.

Craig Prins, currently the inspector general at the Oregon Department of Corrections, will replace OLCC director Steve Marks, whose resignation is effective Feb. 15.

Kotek earlier forced out Marks, who has led the commission since 2013. After deciding to make that change, Kotek learned of an internal OLCC investigation last year that found Marks and five senior managers had diverted rare and expensive whiskey for their own personal use, in violation of state ethics laws. An Oregon Department of Justice criminal investigation into the whiskey diversion, which the OLCC managers said also benefited as yet unnamed lawmakers, is just getting started.

Prins, a Grants Pass native, served as a Multnomah County prosecutor before moving to the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training and later leading the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission. In 2016, he became the inspector general at the Oregon Department of Corrections.

Elisabeth Shepard, a spokeswoman for Kotek, confirmed the governor has asked Prins to take control of the agency.




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