Oklahoma Attorney General says he's staying out of the Swadley's Foggy Bottom probe

The state’s top law enforcement official says he hasn’t reviewed a restaurant company’s controversial contract, despite an alleged $4.5 million in excessive payments.


Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor said he doesn’t want to be a “hotheaded prosecutor” and has no current plans to investigate a controversial state deal with Swadley’s Foggy Bottom Kitchen restaurants at state parks.

O’Connor, who is the state’s highest-ranking law enforcement official, said he hadn’t reviewed Foggy Bottom’s contract and is waiting for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to finish looking into the matter.

“So I just wait for them to do that because otherwise, you have a situation with a hotheaded prosecutor,” O’Connor said. “You have somebody in the AG’s office who’s got a very strong sense of right and wrong, a very strong sense of protecting the taxpayers’ money, but also a level head and doesn’t shoot before aiming.”

In the absence of action from O’Connor, Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater asked OSBI to investigate the Foggy Bottom deal in March after The Frontier reported on millions of dollars the state had poured into remodeling restaurants, management fees and covering the company’s financial losses.

Read more: https://www.readfrontier.org/stories/oklahoma-attorney-general-says-hes-staying-out-of-the-swadleys-foggy-bottom-probe/