Top Virginia Democrat, Family Members Indicted in Marijuana Conspiracy
A federal grand jury has indicted the top Democrat in Virginia’s Senate and some of her family members for running an illegal marijuana trafficking operation that involved wire fraud and money laundering.
Louise Lucas, president pro tempore of the Senate, and six defendants, including her daughters and a grandson, face an eight-count indictment, including a firearms charge.
In 2022, the Virginia Mercury reported that one of Lucas’ stores sold an illegal product.
Lucas was proud of her business, and a month before that story was published had bragged about being a “grandma” marijuana peddler.
She played the race card today on X.
The Charges
The longtime Democrat, the indictment says, is the queenpin of a “criminal enterprise” that included “a close-knit group of associates and family members, including her two daughters and her grandson,” the Justice Department reported:
Lucas allegedly approved and directed activities of the enterprise, including arranging for the acquisition and distribution of 100 kilograms or more of marijuana and supervising the laundering of marijuana proceeds.
Lucas also exploited her “political position to insulate the Lucas Enterprise from criminal scrutiny and to influence legislation benefiting the enterprise,” DOJ continued:
Carlton Upton Jr., 54, of Chesapeake, Virginia, was Lucas’ business partner in VA Freedom Life, an umbrella for The CBD Shoppe and The Cannabis Outlet beginning in 2019. Upton also managed the CBD Shoppe and allegedly worked with Lucas to obtain a recreational marijuana license to benefit the Lucas Enterprise. In April 2020, Upton allegedly made materially false attestations on an application for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) for Virginia Freedom Life, which was funded in the amount of $11,800.
In 2021, Lucas and her daughter, Lisa Lucas-Burke, opened The Cannabis Outlet in Portsmouth, Virginia. Another daughter of Lucas, Theresa Lucas-Lamb, and Lucas-Lamb’s son, Ryan Eichelberger, allegedly acquired marijuana and supervised its distribution and managed The Cannabis Outlet for the Lucas Enterprise. On Feb. 1, 2022, Lucas listed herself as President and CEO of VA Freedom Life on the Virginia Conflict of Interest and Ethics Advisory General Assembly Statement of Economic Interests form.
Lucas also bought “a shell holding company for a co-conspirator’s expected Virginia recreational marijuana license” for $750,000, the indictment charges.
When FBI agents raided the two stores, they found firearms.
As the Virginia Mercury reported, “the case became public May 6, when federal agents searched Lucas’ Portsmouth legislative office and cannabis businesses.”
The eight counts are as follows:
- Count One: Racketeering conspiracy;
- Count Two: Conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute marijuana;
- Count Three: Conspiracy to launder money;
- Count Four: Conspiracy to commit honest services fraud;
- Counts Five and Six: Maintaining drug-involved premises;
- Count Seven: Possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug-involved crime; and,
- Count Eight: Wire fraud.
Louise Lucas and Lisa Lucas-Burke face counts one through five. Prince Albert William Hudson III: counts one through three. Ryan Eichelberger: counts one, two, three, five, and seven. Theresa Lucas-Lamb: one, two, three, and five. Carlton Upton Jr.: one through four, six, and eight. Tameka Johnson: two, three, and six.
Kash Patel’s News Conference
“Ms. Lucas has many things to answer for on the allegation,” FBI chief Kash Patel said at a news conference:
The purpose of her enterprise included trafficking large quantities of illegal marijuana, creating generational wealth for members and associates of her criminal enterprise, recycling drug proceeds to expand the operation that she launched and created, and steering marijuana licenses to entities in which members held financial interest. During her time as a Virginia state senator, instead of enforcing the law, she was actually breaking the law as alleged in the indictment, and then using her position of power and public trust to deflect and defend against her own criminal enterprise — truly the epitome of hypocrisy for a public official.
Patel cited Lucas’ X post.
“I’m a 78 year grandma who legalized pot and now has her own cannibis store,” Lucas bragged on January 24, 2022:
And I’m the last thing standing between The GOP and total control of Virginia. That’s worth an RT!
An RT is a retweet.
“Did I mention my store is on High Street in Portsmouth 😂😎?” she wrote later that day.
On X today, the black lawmaker strongly implied that the case was a racial attack.
“The full weight of the federal government [has] been wielded against an 82-year-old great-grandmother,” Lucas said:
I grew up under Jim Crow. I’ve seen what happens when people in power try to silence those who stand up to them. I spent my life fighting back, and I’m not stopping now.
I am not new to this. I’m true to this.
I will not be intimidated. I will not be bullied. And I will not back down.
Website Report
The Virginia Mercury investigated Lucas’ Cannabis Outlet and found that it was retailing an illegal substance, delta-9 THC, that in concentrations of more than 0.3 percent is a Schedule 1 controlled substance; i.e., one that has a “high potential for abuse” and “no medical use.”
“The Mercury had two products analyzed — the cereal bar and a vape cartridge that claimed to be lab tested but offered no indication of what was inside,” the website reported:
[Michelle] Peace, the [Virginia Commonwealth University] forensic scientist, said both appeared to be synthetic cannabis products and while both contained delta-8 THC, both also contained quantities of delta-9 THC that would make them plainly illegal to sell in Virginia.
