State prosecutors have filed the first criminal case since Attorney General Kris Kobach pushed for new laws targeting organized retail theft.
The Kansas Attorney General’s Office announced last week that Demetrius Lamont Odom is charged in Lyon County District Court in connection to alleged retail crimes targeting Kansas liquor stores.
“Fortunately, the legislature gave the Office of the Attorney General the authority to go after this pervasive form of crime,” Kobach said in a news release. “This prosecution is a significant milestone.”
The charges come after lawmakers in 2023 made Kansas the first state in the country to expand the attorney general’s prosecutorial authority to include retail thefts spanning multiple counties, via Senate Bill 174 . They followed that up with a 2024 law, House Bill 2144 , further targeting such crimes.
Organized retail crime has been a hot-button issue nationally and in Kansas in recent years. While videos of flash mob burglaries made national news, corporations like Target closed stores , blaming organized retail crime. But critics contend that retailers are mistakenly blaming organized theft rings for too great a share of their losses.