More than 3,000 pages of documents, including transcripts of testimony that current and former cannabis regulators gave behind closed doors last summer, has been made available by the Superior Court as Shannon O’Brien continues to contest her firing from the Cannabis Control Commission.
Treasurer Deborah Goldberg suspended O’Brien as CCC chairwoman in September 2023 and fired her in September 2024 after considering two outside investigations and about 19 hours of private meetings held last summer. O’Brien has contested Goldberg’s claims of “gross misconduct” and is appealing her firing through Suffolk Superior Court.
Among the allegations Goldberg cited in firing O’Brien were that the former chairwoman “made rude and disrespectful comments, remarks, statements, and presumptions to Commission staff and colleagues that were or were perceived to be race-based or, at minimum, to be racially, ethnically, and culturally insensitive;” and that she contributed to “a hostile work environment” with the way she treated (or bullied, according to Goldberg) former CCC executive head Shawn Collins, a one-time Goldberg deputy…