Virginia State Senate Leader Louise Lucas Indicted on Federal Racketeering and Drug Charges Tied to Marijuana Shops
Prosecutors say the 82-year-old Democrat and six others ran a multi-year marijuana enterprise and that she used her finance committee chair to shield it. Lucas calls the case an attack on an 82-year-old great-grandmother.
A federal grand jury has indicted Virginia state Sen. Lillie Louise Lucas, a Democrat from Portsmouth, in what the Justice Department calls a racketeering scheme built around marijuana sales. Fox News reports that Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the case at a Thursday press conference. An indictment is an allegation, not a finding of guilt.
The charges. Fox says Lucas faces five counts, including drug trafficking, money laundering, fraud and firearms offenses. Seven people were indicted in all. Besides Lucas, they include her daughters Lisa Lucas-Burke and Theresa Lucas-Lamb and her grandson Ryan Eichelberger. The other three are Prince Albert William Hudson III, Carlton Upton Jr. and Tameka Johnson.
The government's case. The Justice Department says the group ran what it calls "the Lucas Enterprise" for years and that Lucas used her seat as chair of the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee to keep it out of criminal scrutiny and to steer legislation in its favor. FBI Director Kash Patel said as much in the department's statement. Prosecutors say Lucas was directly involved in acquiring and distributing 100 kilograms or more of marijuana and in laundering the proceeds.
The shops. According to the indictment, Lucas opened The CBD Shoppe and The Cannabis Outlet in 2019, nearly two years before Virginia legalized recreational marijuana on July 1, 2021. In 2021 she and Lucas-Burke, who is running for mayor of Portsmouth, opened a Cannabis Outlet in Portsmouth. The indictment quotes Lucas telling an unindicted co-conspirator, while pressing for favorable wording in a marijuana reform bill, "This is our last chance at generational wealth...I've got too old to not be greedy."
Her position. Lucas, 82, has been in the state Senate since 1991 and has been president pro tempore since 2020. Fox says the FBI raided her office and businesses in May. She answered the indictment on X, writing that the FBI, the Justice Department and "the full weight of the federal government have been wielded against an 82-year-old great-grandmother." She added that she grew up under Jim Crow and will not be intimidated or back down. Fox says Lucas-Burke's campaign did not respond to its request for comment.
Blanche said in the department's statement that the charges describe a public servant who "put her own financial interests before the people she was elected to serve."
Note for readers: all allegations come from the Justice Department and the indictment as described by Fox. The defendants have not been tried. Fox's reporting does not include comment from the other defendants.