Green Market Report
This story was republished with permission from Crain’s Detroit and written by Dustin Walsh.
The federal government has thrown the book at a Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, business operator.
Ryan Richmond, who owned Warren medical marijuana dispensary Relief Choices LLC, was sentenced to 24 months in prison for tax evasion and obstructing an IRS investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
The feds allege Richmond paid operating expenses in cash and routed credit card payments through an unrelated third-party bank account to conceal the company’s gross receipts to not pay taxes to the tune of $1.1 million between 2011 and 2014.
Richmond was found guilty in federal court in September.
However, Relief Choices existed in a legal gray area in the state. Michigan voters passed the state’s medical marijuana law in 2008, but court battles persisted for years and the first medical marijuana operating license wasn’t issued until 2018. Legislators had passed the regulatory framework in 2016, but the process took two years to become reality.
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Michigan businessman gets prison time for $1M medical marijuana tax evasion
