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Tag: Oklahoma state government

  • Stitt appoints three new officials to fill roles in his administration

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    Gov. Kevin Stitt speaks at a press conference on June 5, 2025 at the state Capitol in Oklahoma City. (Photo by Emma Murphy/Oklahoma Voice)

    OKLAHOMA CITY — Gov. Kevin Stitt on Thursday appointed three officials to his administration, all of whom he has previously named to other positions in Oklahoma state government. 

    Stitt appointed Donelle Harder as Oklahoma Secretary of State, David Ostrowe as chief operating officer and Dustin Hilliary as his senior advisor. 

    “We successfully launched this administration by bringing a fresh set of eyes from Oklahoma’s business community, and we will finish the same way,” Stitt said in a statement. “These three outstanding Oklahomans bring diverse strengths: Dustin’s trusted leadership and negotiation prowess, David’s operational acumen, and Donelle’s strategic vision.”

    The appointments follow the resignations of Josh Cockroft, who serves as secretary of state and Stitt’s chief policy advisor, and Rick Rose, the head of the Office of Management and Enterprise Services and Oklahoma’s chief operating officer. Cockcroft’s resignation is effective Oct. 2 while Rose plans to depart Sept. 26.

    Donelle Harder is pictured. (Provided by the Oklahoma Governor’s Office)

    Harder previously served as Stitt’s senior advisor and deputy Secretary of State and worked as his spokesperson and campaign manager. She also previously worked as former U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe’s spokesperson. 

    In the private sector, she sold her regional public relations and marketing firm to Pinkston in 2022, and she became one of the company’s senior vice presidents. 

    “I’m honored to serve as Secretary of State and support Governor Stitt’s administration again,” Harder said in a statement. “I look forward to sharpening our strategic approach and ensuring this administration remains effective and focused on delivering good government for the people of Oklahoma.”

    Her appointment is effective Oct. 1. 

    Ostrowe will return to Stitt’s administration as the chief operating officer and secretary to “drive cabinet coordination and support agency directors.”

    David Ostrowe is pictured. (Provided by the Oklahoma Governor’s Office)

    David Ostrowe is pictured. (Provided by the Oklahoma Governor’s Office)

    He currently serves as president and CEO of O&M Restaurant Group leading brand expansions across states. 

    During Stitt’s first term, Ostrowe served as Oklahoma’s first Secretary of Digital Transformation and Administration. He was indicted by former Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter in late 2020 for allegedly bribing a state official. Ostrowe was accused of threatening to cut funding from the state Tax Commission if commissioners didn’t waive penalties and interests on a tax debt. 

    Current Attorney General Gentner Drummond dismissed the charges with prejudice, meaning they can’t be refiled, and apologized to Ostrowe on behalf of the state after he took office. He said Ostrowe should not have been indicted and did nothing wrong.

    “In Governor Stitt’s first administration, we worked with passion to deliver digital transformation and make government more efficient and transparent,” Ostrowe said in a statement. “I am honored to return as COO to help finish that mission and continue advancing good government for all Oklahomans.”

    Dustin Hilliary is pictured. (Provided by the Oklahoma Governor’s Office)

    Dustin Hilliary is pictured. (Provided by the Oklahoma Governor’s Office)

    Hilliary, Stitt’s new senior advisor and chief negotiator, also serves as the vice chair of the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education. It was not immediately clear if he would continue serving in both roles. 

    He is co-CEO of Hilliary Communications, which provides telephone and broadband service to customers in Oklahoma, Texas and Iowa. Hilliary is also co-publisher of the Hilliary Media Group, a media holding company, and operates a real estate development company.

    “It is an honor to serve Oklahoma and to work alongside Governor Stitt in his final term to advance policies with the Legislature that put our state on a strong path today and for future generations,” Hilliary said in a statement.

    The salaries of all three appointees were not immediately provided by the Governor’s Office. 

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  • Oklahoma AG announces 4 new opioid settlements worth $226M

    Oklahoma AG announces 4 new opioid settlements worth $226M

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    OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma entered settlement agreements with three major pharmacy chains and an opioid manufacturer totaling more than $226 million, Attorney General John O’Connor announced Wednesday.

    Including the new settlements with drugmaker Allergan and pharmacy chains CVS, Walgreens and Walmart, Oklahoma has received more than $900 million from opioid makers and distributors to help address the state’s opioid crisis, O’Connor said.

    “The opioid crisis has inflicted unspeakable pain on Oklahoma families and caused the deaths of thousands of Oklahomans,” O’Connor said in a statement. “Between 2016 and 2020, more than 3,000 Oklahomans died from opioid overdoses.”

    Nearly all the settlement funds must be used to help remediate the affects of the opioid crisis in Oklahoma, including prevention and treatment services.

    In November, three of the largest U.S. pharmacy chains reached settlements with states over the toll of opioids worth a total of about $13 billion. Under the separate deals, CVS Health and Walgreen Co. are each paying about $5 billion and Walmart is paying more than $3 billion. None has admitted wrongdoing.

    Allergan didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment about the Oklahoma settlement.

    The settlements are the latest in a wave of deals that state and local governments have struck with companies, including drugmakers, distribution companies and even a consulting firm, even as some lawsuits over how the drugs are marketed and sold continue. The total of proposed and finalized settlements is now more than $50 billion. Unlike with tobacco company settlements in the 1990s, the bulk of the money is required to be used to address the opioid crisis, which has been linked to well over 500,000 U.S. deaths since 2000.

    In 2019, Oklahoma, under then-Attorney General Mike Hunter, was the first state to reach a settlement with Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, for $270 million. Most of that money was used to establish a National Center for Addiction Studies and Treatment at Oklahoma State University in Tulsa.

    Oklahoma was also the first state to go to trial in a lawsuit against the makers of opioids blamed for contributing to the nation’s opioid crisis. A district court judge in 2019 found that New Jersey-based drugmaker Johnson & Johnson and its Belgium-based subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals violated the state’s public nuisance statute and ultimately ordered the company to pay the state $465 million to help address the state’s opioid crisis. However that decision was later overturned by the state’s Supreme Court, which determined the trial court judge wrongly interpreted the state’s public nuisance law.

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    Follow Sean Murphy at www.twitter.com/apseanmurphy

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  • Oklahoma to execute man for 2002 killing of infant daughter

    Oklahoma to execute man for 2002 killing of infant daughter

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    McALESTER, Okla. — A 57-year-old Oklahoma man is scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Thursday for killing his 9-month-old daughter in 2002, despite claims by his attorneys that he is mentally ill and not competent to be executed.

    Attorneys for Benjamin Cole do not dispute that he killed Brianna Cole by forcibly bending the infant backward, breaking her spine and tearing her aorta, but argue that he is both severely mentally ill and that he has a growing lesion on his brain that has continued to worsen while he has been in prison.

    Cole has refused medical attention and ignored his personal hygiene, hoarding food and living in a darkened cell with little to no communication with staff or fellow prisoners, his attorneys told the state’s Pardon and Parole Board last month during a clemency hearing.

    “His condition has continued to decline over the course of this year,” Cole’s attorney Katrina Conrad-Legler said.

    The panel voted 4-1 to deny clemency, and a district judge earlier this month determined Cole was competent to be executed. A last-minute appeal filed with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to halt his execution was denied on Wednesday.

    Cole has a lesion on his brain, which is separate from his diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, that has grown in size in recent years and affects the part of his brain that deals with problem solving, movement and social interaction, Conrad-Legler has said.

    Attorneys for the state and members of the victim’s family told the board that Cole’s symptoms of mental illness are exaggerated and that the brutal nature of his daughter’s killing merit his execution.

    Assistant Attorney General Tessa Henry said Cole killed his daughter because he was infuriated that her crying from her crib interrupted his playing of a video game.

    “He is not severely mentally ill,” said another prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Ashley Willis. “There is nothing in the constitution or jurisprudence that prevents his execution.”

    Prosecutors noted that the infant had numerous injuries consistent with a history of abuse and that Cole had previously served time in prison in California for abusing another child.

    Board members also heard emotional testimony from family members of the slain child’s mother, who urged the board to reject clemency.

    “The first time I got to see Brianna in person was lying in a casket,” said Donna Daniel, the victim’s aunt. “Do you know how horrible it is to see a 9-month-old baby in a casket?

    “This baby deserves justice. Our family deserves justice.”

    Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor said in a statement that he is confident Cole is sufficiently competent to be executed.

    “Although his attorneys claim Cole is mentally ill to the point of catatonia, the fact is that Cole fully cooperated with a mental evaluation in July of this year,” O’Connor said. “The evaluator, who was not hired by Cole or the State, found Cole to be competent to be executed and that ‘Mr. Cole does not currently evidence any substantial, overt signs of mental illness, intellectual impairment, and/or neurocognitive impairment.’”

    Cole’s execution would be the sixth since Oklahoma resumed carrying out the death penalty in October 2021.

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