Oklahoma AG to prosecute marijuana ‘ghost owner’ cases in partnership with Bureau of Narcotics

A multicounty grand jury indicted Canadian County lawyer Matt Stacy in Garvin County final 12 months, and his case is one of three in the jurisdiction the Attorney General’s Office is partnering with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control to prosecute, in accordance to courtroom information.

Notice of an interlocal settlement filed in the case towards Stacy states that the Attorney General’s Office has appointed Bureau of Narcotics attorneys to Stacy’s case and the cases towards Logan Jones and Eric Brown, legislation companions who have been additionally indicted through multicounty grand jury final 12 months on comparable allegations.

Stacy, who served as Gov. Kevin Stitt’s hospital surge plan adviser in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, was charged with 13 felony counts in October. He was accused of paying residents to be “ghost owners” of develop operations for Chinese organized crime operations and different out-of-state shoppers, a way designed to evade legal guidelines that require that Oklahoma residents personal a minimum of 75% of a develop operation, the discharge states.

Jones and Brown have been every charged with 11 felony counts in June, practically a 12 months after a former secretary of the Jones Brown legislation agency alleged in a lawsuit that her former employers successfully made her a “ghost owner.”

A Bureau of Narcotics investigation discovered that Jones and Brown directed medical marijuana companies to signal consulting agreements with Jones Brown’s staff to act as “ghost owners” of the medical marijuana operations, former Attorney General John O’Connor mentioned then.

Drummond mentioned his workplace will work carefully with the bureau in Stacy’s case.

Mark Woodward, a Bureau of Narcotics spokesman, mentioned he couldn’t remark particularly on Stacy’s case or that of Jones or Brown.

“Our agency has many entities under investigation for orchestrating fraudulent straw owner structures and submitting dishonest documentation to get licenses for criminal organizations that are supplying the black market and crippling the legitimate Oklahoma marijuana cultivation businesses,” Woodward mentioned in a press release Thursday.

“We have just scratched the surface. We have identified and are investigating nearly 3,000 marijuana grows operating with a license obtained by fraud and/or moving their marijuana onto the out-of-state black market. We have also tied other crimes to these illicit growers, including homicides, labor and sex trafficking, environmental contamination, water and electrical theft, and suspected arson.”

Drummond additionally highlighted the inflow of organized crime that he mentioned the unlawful marijuana farms are inflicting and attributed most of the criminality to Chinese nationals.

“Any Oklahoman who partners with these criminals and enables their illicit dealings will be held accountable,” Drummond mentioned in the news launch.

‘We will not allow foreign nationals to purchase farmland in the state of Oklahoma,’ Gov. Stitt declares’.