Header Image: Michael Halow (Linked In)
The Missouri Independent has published the following report , here is the introduction
Contract tied to six revoked microbusiness licenses aimed to give investor full ownership of the business, while Black disabled veteran applied for the license
Destiny Brown thought she had been recruited last year to own and operate a small-scale Missouri cannabis dispensary — and get paid $200,000 to do it.
Cannabis investor Michael Halow told Brown, who is Black, that her disabled veteran status and the marijuana offense on her father’s record qualified her for a Missouri microbusiness license. The qualifications were designed for these licenses to end up in the hands of disadvantaged business owners, including disabled veterans, those with lower incomes and people with non-violent marijuana offenses.
Brown didn’t closely read the 40-page contract she signed with Halow, but says he repeatedly told her he would help her with $2 million to get the business up and running, according to a transcript of Brown’s interview in March with the Missouri Division of Cannabis Regulation investigators.
“Mike just said he had money to do that,” Brown told officials, according to the document The Independent obtained through a public records request. “He always says that. He just said, ‘I have the money. I can help.’”
He never told Brown that the contract’s fineprint aimed to give Halow full ownership of the business while using her as the legal front of it. A felony on Halow’s record could potentially disqualify him from holding a license himself.
Brown — who told state regulators she lives in Arizona and declined to be interviewed for this story — was among 16 people who won the lottery for Missouri microbusiness dispensary licenses last October. Six were connected to Halow, and each of those licenses has since been revoked.
After Brown got the license, she hired a lawyer and separated herself from Halow and his consultants. She gave cannabis regulators agreements she signed or that Halow had sent her — including documents the state previously did not have, according to legal filings.
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