Corperation Commisioner Bob Anthony.
Oklahoma Corporation Commissioner Bob Anthony isn’t giving up in his quest for an investigation into the allegations leveled against fellow commissioner Todd Hiett and maintains there has been knowledge by agency staff of Hiett’s alleged criminal wrongdoing while in office.
“The public still has very incomplete information about this ongoing situation. Unfortunately, there do not seem to be any credible investigations taking place that are likely to shine any
additional light on the subject.”
In a dissenting opinion regarding a rate increase for Oklahoma Gas and Electric, Anthony again raised a number of allegations regarding the agency’s investigation into the reported drunkenness and sexual groping of a man last June during a national convention in Minnesota. He filed the opinion this week with the commission.
“But just as the ratepaying public deserves to know if OCC cases impacting the utility bills they pay have been unlawfully tainted by misconduct influencing commissioner impartiality, the taxpaying public deserves to know if state agency resources have been
used to cover up that misconduct,” he stated in his opinion.
In the filing, Commissioner Anthony also made certain accusations against fellow commissioner Kim David and the OCC’s Administrator Brandy Wreath.
David chose not to respond to the claims made while Administrator Wreath offered a statement to OK Energy Today.
“I of course would love to publicly respond to the specific egregious and false allegations in this filing. Unfortunately, it is mostly made up of false information around personnel matters.”
Anthony’s latest filing, an extended and more detailed version of a filing made July 30 regarding the claims against Hiett, said Commission chair Kim David knew of one of the alleged incidents and did not report it as he believes is required by OCC policy.
Anthony further contended in the filing there has been a “possible” coverup of the misconduct allegations against Hiett.
“Among them, what I have called the OCC’s sham “personnel investigation,” conflicts of interest at the Attorney General’s Office, failures to disclose by attorneys, questionable pay raises, and inexplicable changes made by the OCC director of administration to the agency’s Ethics Policy,” he wrote in the 76-page opinion.
Commissioner Anthony contends Wreath was aware of some of the incidents for weeks prior to the agency starting an investigation.
In his lengthy list of claims, Anthony charged there has been “unlawful” denials of open records requests concerning the incidents involving Hiett. He further accused Wreath of “contradicting” statements about his handling of the claims against Hiett.
Anthony also raised the question of whether “hush” money was paid to keep quiet about some of the incidents, particuarly a 2023 case where Hiett allegedly exposed himself to two female employees of the Commission while attending a party at a bar.
“It appears that less than two weeks after the 2023 Broadway 10 reception at/after which Hiett allegedly exposed himself to two female OCC employees, one of those employees received a
$16,000 pay raise. This could just be coincidence, of course, but it puzzles me because she had just received a 20% pay increase three months earlier,” wrote Anthony in his filing.
Anthony, term limted and who will be leaving office in January 2025, stated he believes staff who knew of the 2023 incident had a legal responsibility to report it to authorities.
“In my opinion, this extraordinary situation deserved an extraordinary response, including immediate notification of employees, parties to cases, stakeholders, our colleagues in other
states, and law enforcement, among others. To my knowledge, there has still been no official communication to OCC employees warning them about the presence of an alleged sexual predator in their midst.”
In the conclusion of his lengthy filing, Commissioner Anthony declared, “After learning about serious allegations of sexual harassment and assault, did a state agency funded by taxpayer dollars spend time and resources “promptly and adequately” investigating, and “taking appropriate action based on the findings of that investigation to prevent the conduct from continuing”? Or did that agency fail to perform its duties as a result of damage control, whitewash and coverup?
