According to the legal motion filed, “Mr. Tompkins made an investment as did many others … and received no financial benefit not conferred on other buyers.”
It’s one of the biggest and most scandalous stories to date involving the Massachusetts cannabis industry. In August, Steven Tompkins, the elected head of the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department, was charged with extortion involving the purchase of an equity interest in a Boston-based cannabis company.
Tompkins, 67, was indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts of Extortion Under Color of Official Right. He was taken into custody in the Southern District of Florida and arraigned in federal court in Boston, where he pleaded not guilty.
The unnamed cannabis company at the center of this scandal—the Suffolk County sheriff’s alleged shakedown victim—is Ascend Wellness Holdings [AWH], a New York-based multi-state operator with strong Mass ties and a footprint here that includes a flagship store in North Station. According to the indictment, in 2019 Ascend entered a relationship with the department “whereby the [Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department] would help screen and refer graduates of its re-entry program to apply for work at [AWH]’s retail store. [AWH]’s partnership with the [sheriff’s department] was memorialized in a September 2019 letter signed by Tompkins and submitted to the CCC in its completed dispensary license application in or about March 2020.”
The problem came from Tompkins allegedly getting in on the action himself. According to court documents, “Tompkins paid a pre-IPO price [for AWH shares] of approximately $1.73 per share … and after a reverse stock split, Tompkins held approximately 14,417 shares at a price of approximately $3.46 per share.” But after “[AWH] stock decreased in value such that Tompkins’s equity interest in [AWH] stock was worth several thousand dollars less than the $50,000 he originally invested,” the indictment alleges that the sheriff pressured the company to cut him five reimbursement checks between May 2022 and July 2023.
The saga is now playing out in the courts, with Tompkins stepping back from his position as sheriff. And last week, the sheriff’s attorneys filed a new motion characterized the indictment as “predicated upon a number of factual infirmities,” stating that Tompkins “did not engage in any schemes to extort a cannabis executive.”
“Mr. Tompkins was entitled to receive the value of his equity interest, and his request to do so was not ‘wrongful’ and therefore cannot support conviction,” per the motion. “Mr. Tompkins made an investment as did many others, paid full value for it, and received no financial benefit not conferred on other buyers.”
To be continued …
