Pharmacy Board Head Allegedly Offered Official A Job To Sway Marijuana Rules

Oklahoma City — The lawyer for a former state official accused of sending threatening messages to herself over medical marijuana regulations said attempted bribes and pressure from heads of other state agencies had taken a toll on her.

Ed Blau is representing Julie Ezell, the former general counsel at the Oklahoma State Department of Health. Ezell resigned July 13 and was charged Tuesday with two felonies and a misdemeanor for allegedly creating false evidence by emailing threatening messages, which were written as if she were being stalked by a medical marijuana advocate, to herself.

The case took another strange turn Thursday when text messages published by the journalism website NonDoc appeared to show Chelsea Church, director of the Oklahoma State Board of Pharmacy, offering Ezell a job if she wrote a rule requiring medical marijuana dispensaries to hire pharmacists, three days before the board voted.

It wasn’t clear from the messages if Church meant to offer a quid pro quo, but Blau said Ezell took the messages seriously.

“It’s pretty clear that she had the director of another agency offering her what amounted to a bribe,” he said, adding that other agency heads whom he declined to name also were pressuring Ezell at the time. “She basically was offered a position that was not in the spotlight that she was in, for a lot more money.”

Church didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Ultimately, Ezell didn’t include the pharmacist requirement in the proposed regulations, but the state Board of Health voted to add it as an amendment at their July 10 meeting.

In the messages, sent in the evening of July 7, Church and Ezell discussed the pharmacist requirement. About 10 p.m., Church broached the issue of a job.

Source: NewsOK