The man standing outside the McDonald’s drive-thru window at 10:45 on the night of Friday, Aug. 14, was not a random late-night customer. He was Benjamin Lepak, 42, the Oklahoma Secretary of State, holding a bag of food. A few minutes later he was in handcuffs and headed to the Edmond jail on a municipal public intoxication complaint.
The whole encounter was on police body cameras, and Edmond police released the footage on Tuesday. Lepak is not just any appointee, either. He is the son of a state representative and the man whose office keeps Oklahoma’s official records. Gov. Kevin Stitt made him general counsel in October 2024 and secretary of state a year after that.
He Really Wanted His McDonald’s
The reason Lepak gave officers for being there is the part people keep repeating. He told them he had gone to a church event earlier in the day with other dads, that his kids had just started at a new school that week, and that Friday was his special night. “Got McDonald’s, cause this is my night to have McDonald’s,” he told the officers, according to the police report.
He also told them he had been eating healthy lately, which made the McDonald’s run sound like a treat he had earned. That part is ordinary enough for a busy dad. The rest of it did not hold up.
A 911 Caller Was Worried About Him Driving
Lepak did not get noticed because he was causing trouble. He got noticed because a stranger was worried about him. Edmond police said they took multiple calls before officers ever showed up, and one caller sounded almost apologetic about making it.
“He’s been out here for, like, a while now. He does seem drunk, so I don’t know if you guys want to give him a check or something here,” the caller told dispatchers. Then came the real fear: “Cause I don’t want him to be, like, cause any harm while he’s driving, cause he does seem intoxicated.” That is why officers came out. Someone did not want him behind the wheel.
The Beer Count Kept Changing
When Officer Lucas DeRose walked up, he laid it out plainly. “I’m just going to be honest, people are calling cause they’re worried about you being intoxicated,” DeRose said. Then he asked Lepak if he had been drinking. Lepak’s first answer was one word: “Nope.”
That did not hold. As the conversation went on, the story moved. He had one beer. Then he walked it back again: “Actually, I had less than that because I didn’t finish it.” The driving question got the same treatment. He said he came from home, “just a block away,” then gave an address that sits about four miles from that McDonald’s, by NonDoc’s reckoning. His car, meanwhile, was sitting in the restaurant’s lot.
The officer wrote that Lepak had “extremely slurred speech,” smelled of alcohol, and could not keep a coherent train of thought going when answering questions. He also struggled just to pull his ID out of his wallet. Near the end of the video he started to tell officers he works “for the state.” A second officer, Jacob Spencer, told him flat out that he was lucky he was not getting booked for a DUI.
This Was Not His First Alcohol Arrest
Here is where the story stops being a rough night and starts being a pattern. Back in May 2021, before he was anywhere near this job, Lepak was arrested by The Village Police Department. Officers said they had to knock on the window of his truck for several minutes just to wake him up.
A breath test that night came back at roughly 0.11% to 0.12%, comfortably over Oklahoma’s 0.08% limit, according to court records reviewed by KFOR. Lepak pleaded guilty to actual physical control of a vehicle while intoxicated and to transporting an opened container of beer, both misdemeanors. He got a one-year deferred sentence, which means no conviction goes on the record if he finishes the terms. The same records show he later asked the court to seal information about the arrest.
The Attorney General Wants Him Gone
Attorney General Gentner Drummond did not wait long. He first asked Stitt to place Lepak on leave and pushed for the footage to be made public. Once it was out, he wanted a firing.
“After reviewing footage from law enforcement body cameras, it is clear that Secretary of State Ben Lepak was thoroughly inebriated and very likely lied to law enforcement about how much he had to drink and how he and his car both arrived at the same place without him driving it,” Drummond said. He called the behavior unbecoming of a high-ranking state official, and went after the governor’s judgment directly: Stitt “should have known better than to elevate him to such a senior leadership position.”
It is worth knowing where Drummond is standing when he says that. He faces former state Sen. Mike Mazzei in the Republican runoff for governor on Aug. 25, and Stitt, who is term-limited, has endorsed Mazzei.
So Can Stitt Fire Him?
It is the obvious question, and the governor’s office is not answering it. Stitt appointed Lepak interim secretary of state in October 2025, made the appointment permanent in January 2026, and the state Senate confirmed him in April. Since the arrest his office has not responded to requests for comment, and it will not say whether Lepak keeps the job.
Lepak Says He Is Staying
Despite the calls to step down, Lepak has no plans to resign, The Oklahoman reported, citing people familiar with the matter. His office said he was not given a breathalyzer that night and that he intends to handle the citation “through the legal process.” Public intoxication is a municipal charge, not a DUI, so the case plays out in Edmond Municipal Court rather than a bigger criminal setting.
What makes this stick is not the drunk-at-McDonald’s headline. It is the mix of an earlier alcohol-related arrest, the shifting answers on camera, and a governor’s office going quiet while his own attorney general publicly demands action. It is also worth remembering that an arrest is an allegation, not a conviction, and Lepak is presumed innocent unless a court says otherwise. NonDoc reached him late Tuesday. He declined to comment.
