Connect with us

Cannabis Law News

Beverly Hills Lawyer Invested in Oregon Cannabis Farm .. Percentage of Crop(s) Ended Up In Cali Market

Published

on


Willamette Week breaks the story that’s going to ruin his holidays.

One of the many weed entrepreneurs to descend on Cave Junction during the green rush was Matthew Portnoff, a partner with a specialty in cannabis law at the California offices of a white-shoe law firm.

In 2020, the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission determined that weed grown at his farm in 2019 had been diverted onto the black market. But after a yearslong investigation, the agency was never able to conclude whether Portnoff authorized the leakage—or if he was instead the victim of a swindle.

Portnoff declined to comment for this story.

A graduate of UC Berkeley and the University of Southern California’s law school, Portnoff, 48, is an expert in tax law based in Beverly Hills, with a history of entrepreneurial forays. (An online database lists him as a producer of a romantic comedy starring Paris Hilton in 2006 that was panned by critics.)

In 2016, Portnoff and his wife, Luiza, purchased a Cave Junction farm for $415,000 just as the state began handing out licenses to grow recreational weed. (An LLC controlled by his father, a surgeon from California, bought 19 acres next door to his son for the same purpose.)

Two years later, Portnoff and his wife landed a license. So, eventually, did his dad. They grew thousands of plants on the 35-acre properties located along Takilma Road in the rural farmland of the Illinois Valley.

To run his new Oregon farm, Portnoff hired a local grower named Michael Horner, who’d come recommended by a California client.

But by the time the first harvest arrived, an oversupply of weed on the market caused prices in Oregon to fall by at least half.

And beginning in February 2019, the OLCC began documenting a series of concerning reports from Portnoff’s employees.

First, Horner quit his job working for Portnoff and told an OLCC inspector in February 2019 that men had arrived on the farm to take weed back to California for sale.

A month later, the inspector went to the farm to investigate. State-licensed farms are required to have surveillance cameras monitoring all aspects of the operation. But in March 2019, the inspector discovered a four-day gap in the footage—and found “many discrepancies” between the inventory on site and what was recorded in a state database. The inspector opened some storage totes to find them empty or full of “waste material.” (The OLCC declined to disclose the records identifying the discrepancies to WW, noting they were exempt from public disclosure.)

Read the full report at 

https://www.wweek.com/news/2023/12/20/a-beverly-hills-lawyer-invested-in-oregon-weed-not-all-of-the-crop-seems-to-have-stayed-in-oregon/



Source link

Continue Reading

Cannabis Law News

The Oregonian: Naked Oregon man wounded by exploding weed pen, lawsuit claims

Published

on

By


Thanks to Vince Sliwoski for tipping us off to this only in Oregon story !

A man who was getting baked while bare of any clothes was seriously injured when his weed pen exploded, a lawsuit filed Friday claims.

Gustavo Mendes now seeks $230,000 from the manufacturer of the malfunctioning marijuana vaporizer and the Eugene pot shop where he bought it, according to allegations in the Lane County Circuit Court suit.

The incident happened Feb. 13, 2023 as the 28-year-old was standing in his bathroom “in a state of undress,” according to the lawsuit.

Mendes took a puff or two and realized the pen was superheating in his hands, the lawsuit says; in a flash, it exploded — spraying burning chemicals onto his eyes, torso and below his waist.

The subsequent fire on the bathroom counter and floor cost $20,000 to repair, while Mendes’ medical bills at a Springfield hospital and Gresham eye care center topped $3,500, the suit says.

After previously earning $68,000 a year as a welder, Mendes is now sensitive to light and must apply eye drops regularly, necessitating a change in careers, according to his attorney.

He had purchased the pen, branded under the name Quantum Alchemy, three days prior at Hwy 99 Cannabis Co. Both the retailer and manufacturer are named as defendants in court papers.

Quantum Alchemy’s website has expired and an email inquiry bounced back.

https://www.oregonlive.com/marijuana/2025/02/naked-oregon-man-wounded-by-exploding-weed-pen-lawsuit-claims.html

 

Quantam has been getting recall notices as far back as 2022 as this OLCC alert testifies.

nr120222-Cannabis-Product-Recall-Pesticide-Bobsled-QuantumAlchemy



Source link

Continue Reading

Cannabis Law News

EWeb Page / SEC Docs – SEC Charges Acreage Holdings, Inc. For Accounting Violations

Published

on

By


ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEEDING
File No. 3-22389

January 10, 2025 – The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced settled charges against Acreage Holdings, Inc. for violating the books and records provision of the federal securities laws when it created false records regarding a transfer of approximately $4 million that was temporarily moved into the company’s bank account a few days before the end of Acreage’s 2019 fiscal year.

According to the SEC’s order, Acreage caused an affiliated entity to transfer approximately $4.2 million into Acreage’s bank account on December 26, 2019, with the express understanding that Acreage would return the full amount at the beginning of the new year, which it did on January 3, 2020.  Acreage then allegedly created journal entries and other records that mischaracterized the round-trip transfer, first as a repayment of debt owed by the affiliate and later as a short-term loan to Acreage.  The SEC’s order further finds that after certain employees’ concerns about the round-trip nature of the transaction were escalated to a member of Acreage’s board of directors, Acreage recorded an additional journal entry that effectively reversed the transaction.

The SEC’s order also finds that during the audit of Acreage’s fiscal year 2019 financial statements, Acreage created and provided written documents to the accounting firm conducting the audit that misrepresented and omitted material facts about the round-trip cash transfer.  As a result, the SEC’s order finds that Acreage violated Section 13(b)(2)(A) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 by failing to make and keep books, records, and accounts that accurately and fairly reflected the round-trip cash transfer.

Without admitting or denying the findings in the SEC’s order, Acreage agreed to cease and desist from committing or causing violations or future violations of Section 13(b)(2)(A), and to pay a civil penalty of $225,000.

The SEC’s investigation was conducted by Kiran Patel, Nandy Celamy, Russel Feldman and George N. Stepaniuk, and was supervised by Thomas P. Smith, Jr., all of the New York Regional Office.



Source link

Continue Reading

Cannabis Law News

Homberg Leaves Dentons For New Post At Gunnercooke

Published

on

By


Peter Homberg writes on Linked In Today

After more than 12 exciting years at Dentons, I’m delighted to share that I have joined the international law firm gunnercooke.

I’m excited to offer my clients truly exceptional service, leveraging gunnercooke’s flexibility, innovation, and collaborative culture to support them closely through their legal challenges, while also shaping and expanding my practice in a direction I’m passionate about.

I look forward to the many exciting projects and cases to come, please reach out if you’d like to know more.

 



Source link

Continue Reading
Advertisement

Trending

Copyright © 2021 The Art of MaryJane Media