Noble House Watch, a cannabis watchdog suggests it is their civic duty to report criminal activity. Noble House provides an unqualified legal analysis of the alleged conspiracy being perpetrated by members of the public and employees of the city of Sacramento.
“Hub and Spoke” conspiracy to commit fraud.
Though the transfer of ownership of a dispensary permit is not allowed; this activity is not in of itself criminal. The sole consequence of transferring or selling ownership, merely revokes\terminates the dispensary permit; without appeal or recourse. However, this particular conspiracy was intended to fool and defraud city authorities, other dispensary applicants, as well as the general public. Fraud is also not legal; fraud coupled with conspiracy, is not only criminal; it is felonious.
First of all; 80 plus dispensary’s were banned in Sac County, and it seems like everyone from the city managers office, to corrupt attorney’s; from current and former dispensary owners to former council members turned lobbyist; from former police chiefs to current members of city staff … seems like everyone wants in on the 420 action nowadays.
The Sac City Conspiracy is a scheme to buy and sell permits, bundled with the necessary registered locations, as well as a the city authorization to operate the permits. You should know that one cannot get a state permit to operate a dispensary without a local permit, therefore obtaining the local permit is critical. The three key components of each transaction are guaranteed by the “hub” or City Managers office; Brad Wassan.
How it works: The scheme begins and ends with the HUB. The “HUB” notifies the “SPOKE” (broker) that a dispensary is in trouble, potentially open to sell, and vulnerable to the scheme. The broker or “spoke” contacts the troubled dispensary owner and ostensibly offers to help, but actually only offers to buy the dispensary permit from the troubled owner at far below market value. In many cases, (apparently at least 25 in Sac City) with no alternative seemingly available, the troubled dispensary owner accepts the deal.
In at least one case a dispensary owner was forced out; the permit was ultimately and intentionally denied by the city (Wassan) because the owner refused the offer to sell his dispensary permit. Here for reference, the SPOKE used the HUB to influence the denial of the dispensary permit. In this particular situation the Broker\Spoke\Justin Kitano requested that the Hub\City Staff\Brad Wassan, use his influence to fabricate issues with the owner’s application, thereby applying civic pressure to sell the permit. The pressure is intended so that the owner will capitulate and sell to the Spoke/broker for pennies on the dollar.
In this particular case however, the dispensary owner stood fast, and did not capitulate and sell; resulting in the ultimate denial of the permit. The owner recently filed a Federal lawsuit, which has been vetted by a top litigation and civil rights attorney. The lawsuit intends to prove these and other allegations. The owners chances of prevailing are very good.
REFERENCE: A good case to study; contrast and compare with Wassan from above is the peculiar case of former UCFW 5 union official Dan Rush; who has been indicted by grand jury and faces a felony lawsuit for using his position to influence the selection process; determining who ultimately received dispensary permits in the east bay.
Robbie Watters, a former Sac City Councilman outed a few years back on corruption and nepotism charges is another good example of this conspiracy in action. A marijuana protagonist turned hypocrite; intending to cash in on the hard work of others who have gone before him. Watters actually was THE BIGGEST protagonist to marijuana advocates in Sacramento; once bragging that he turned over marijuana dispensary’s to the fed’s when he found them advertising in Sacramento News and Review. Watters’ routinely mocked Ryan Landers during council meetings when Landers stood up for patients rights in the early days.
Surprise, surprise, Watters (420 hypocrite) along with a former police chief, is now a marijuana lobbyist, and NEW partner and NEW owner of the dispensary 1841 located on El Camino Ave. Watters willingly purchased the dispensary permit, with the help of City Managers office Brad Wassan, knowing that it was not legal to do so. Because Watters knowingly and willingly purchased the dispensary with the intent to fool or defraud Sacramento city authorities, other applicants and the general public, he willingly participating in a conspiracy to commit fraud; therefore Watters is an alleged criminal participant in a hub and spoke conspiracy, and any other participant in the same scheme is also a criminal.
Don’t be fooled, many of these men wear suits and ties; appear “professional” but are unscrupulous and throw thousands of dollars in bribes at unwary dupes, these men are good at manipulation, and will use any means: bribery, extortion, sabotage, theft, gang stalking, and intimidation to get what they want. Despite the money, suit and ties; these people are just criminals … participants in a dirty conspiracy to defraud the City of Sacramento; and should these men be found guilty, they must pay the price for their crime.
WEEZYLEAKS.COM LIST OF KNOW PARTICIPANTS: Justin Kitano; Max Del Rio; Justin Flanery; Atty Doug White, Atty James Anthony, Antony Vasquez, Adam Wood, Matthew Davies, Bryan Smith, Wayne Johnson, Atty David M Syme, Brad Wassan, Joy Patterson.
The disclosure of this illegal activity will undoubtedly lead to even more equal protection, and denial of due process lawsuits; possibly even a class action lawsuit by the other applicants involved in the selection process; those who did not participate in the conspiracy to commit fraud.
At least two complaints have been filed against the city of Sacramento alleging this is all true. The evidence may be found within the volume of documents collected by the city during the selection process. The documents and evidence has been vetted by a reputed law firm of Sacramento: Hackard Law, and alleged to contain many examples of illegal transfers of ownership and as well as other violations not yet mentioned here.
WeezyLeaks.com has learned that former council member Robert Fong (former protagonist) is now a lobbyist for Ohana; a marijuana cultivation company located here in Sac city. This seems to be a clear conflict of interest given the prior example and the implied fact that former council member Robert Fong has direct access to Sac City functionary’s, and can use his connections to gain unfair advantage for Ohana, during the upcoming cultivation permit selection process. Given the history, we believe that this is exactly what the Sac City Conspiracy intends to do. Be aware.
Noble House Watch contends these participants willingly and knowingly participated in a conspiracy to commit fraud, and furthermore intend to continue and carry this criminal activity into the cultivation permit process as well as use the size of their conspiracy to control future dispensing and cultivation markets within the region.
Considering it their civic duty, Noble House intends to submit, a formal complaint against members of Sacramento City staff, and specific citizens of the general public for criminal participation in a conspiracy to commit fraud against the city of Sacramento and the general public, to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI).
KNOW THIS: This process is corrupted, and these criminal participants want to corrupt the cultivation process as well; they want to get you involved to further their agenda, and cover their asses; these criminals will offer to buy your registered grow site … Don’t Do It: this is not legal and will more then likely void your application or permit!
WEEZYLEAKS.COM WANTS YOU!
Get involved; Remain Vigilant, Report any and all WeezyLeak activity. If you have any information or questions or just want to be a part of this; let us know as soon as possible, and we will make it happen.
DEFINITIONS AND NOTABLE EXAMPLES OF “HUB AND SPOKE” & “CHAIN” CONSPIRACIES:
FURTHER STUDY FROM WIKIPEDIA
Drug cases[edit]
Poliafico[edit]
One of the cases that the Supreme Court relied on in Blumenthal was Poliafico. In Poliafico v. United States, the Sixth Circuit found a conspiracy to sell heroin among several suppliers in bulk and their retail supplier agents (street dealers) who retailed it to addicts in diluted form and in smaller quantities. The Sixth Circuit explained the structure of the hub-and-spoke conspiracy as follows:
All of the appellants were either selling heroin to Poliafico and his associates, or reselling it for them, or carrying on negotiations for such sales, or making payments therefor, or delivering heroin for resale, or reselling it. The purchase of heroin and the resale of heroin, in this case, was concerned with one enterprise, which could be called the Poliafico deal, in the parlance of the underworld. The over-all conspiracy was the plan, conceived by Poliafico and his associates, to buy and sell heroin at a profit. The [retail] suppliers knew that the purchases were for resale and they also knew that several conspirators were involved in the purchases.[27]
The court said, “The fact that one such [retail] supplier did not have dealings with another [retail] supplier does not matter,” because if “each performs the same role at successive stages for the same ends, and both know and participate in the plan of the others to buy and sell heroin at a profit, each is guilty as a conspirator.”[28] The court explained its concept of a hub-and-spoke conspiracy:
When two or more persons are shown to have been engaged in the same unlawful conspiracy, having for its object the same common and unlawful purpose, it is not necessary to prove the knowledge by one of the dealings, or even of the existence, of the others, in order to render evidence of the actions of those others admissible against that person. There was one conspiracy in this case — the continuing scheme of buying and reselling heroin.
The proofs of the government show that all appellants were associated in this scheme, some by virtue of selling or delivering the heroin to the Poliafico group, others because of being associated with the group in carrying out the scheme, collecting money through resales of the drug, making payments to suppliers, or carrying on negotiations for the purchase or resale. All appellants knew of the conspiracy. The suppliers knew that the Poliafico group must resell the heroin at a profit; and all associated with Poliafico in the resale of the heroin knew that Poliafico must buy it from suppliers and that the resales must be at a profit.[29]
It is not necessary for each conspirator to know the whole scope or all the details of the conspiracy. “He must know the [unlawful] purpose of the conspiracy, however, otherwise he is not guilty.”[30]
Tramaglino[edit]
Other narcotics conspiracy cases are similar. For example, in United States v. Tramaglino,[31] a distinguished panel of the Second Circuit (Swan, A. Hand, and Frank) found a single conspiracy to buy and resell marijuana based on “evidence of several sales, at different periods, by Rosario and Tramaglino, of marihuana to the same group of buyers with knowledge on the part of the two suppliers that several conspirators were involved in the purchases and that the purchases were for resale.” The court explained:
This was enough, we think, to show that each appellant, as supplier, participated in, and acted to further the ends of, the conspiracy. It did not matter that neither had dealings with one another; each performed the same role at successive stages for the same ends. The overall conspiracy was the plan conceived by the intermediary group — Alvarez, Zayas, and their fellows — to buy and resell marihuana at a profit. Both Rosario and Tramaglino knew and participated in this plan by furnishing the essential ingredient — the marihuana.[32]
Chain conspiracy[edit]
A closely related concept to the hub-and-spoke conspiracy, or a variation on it, is the chain conspiracy, which is linear rather than wheel-shaped. A representative example is United States v. Bruno. In Bruno 88 people were alleged to be members of a single conspiracy to import, sell and possess narcotics. The evidence was that over a substantial period of time a conspiracy existed embracing a great number of persons. The object of the conspiracy was to smuggle narcotics into New York and distribute them to addicts both in New York and in Texas and Louisiana. “This required the cooperation of four groups of persons: the smugglers who imported the drugs; the middlemen who paid the smugglers and distributed to retailers; and two groups of retailers — one in New York and one in Texas and Louisiana — who supplied the addicts.”[33]
The defendants argued that there were at least three separate conspiracies: one between the smugglers and the middlemen, one in New York between the New York middlemen and group of retailers. and one in Texas and Louisiana between those middlemen and retailers. Since the evidence did not disclose any cooperation or communication between the smugglers and either group of retailers, or between the two groups of retailers themselves. However, insisted the court:
The smugglers knew that the middlemen must sell to retailers, and the retailers knew that the middlemen must buy of importers of one sort or another. Thus the conspirators at one end of the chain knew that the unlawful business would not, and could not, stop with their buyers; and those at the other end knew that it had not begun with their sellers. That being true, a jury might have found that all the accused were embarked upon a [single] venture, in all parts of which each was a participant, and an abettor in the sense that the success of that part with which he was immediately concerned, was dependent upon the success of the whole.[34]
There could also be two conspiracies—one in New York including the smugglers, the New York middlemen and the New York group of retailers; and the other including the smugglers, the Gulf Coast middlemen and the Gulf Coast group of retailers. There was apparently no contact between the two groups of retailers, possibly negating their being in a conspiracy together. “That too would be fallacious,” the court said, because there was only one conspiracy as far as the defendant smugglers were concerned:
For it was of no moment to them whether the middlemen sold to one or more groups of retailers, provided they had a market somewhere. So too of any retailer; he knew that he was a necessary link in a scheme of distribution, and the others, whom he knew to be convenient to its execution, were as much parts of a single undertaking or enterprise as two salesmen in the same shop. We think therefore that there was only one conspiracy.[35]
To sustain a chain conspiracy charge, the evidence must establish “that each conspirator had the specific intent to further the common unlawful objective.”[36] It is immaterial that the individual co-conspirators do not know each other or meet. “Courts have long recognized that participants in a continuous drug distribution enterprise can be parties to a single conspiracy even if they do not all know one another, so long as each knows that his own role in the distribution of drugs and the benefits he derives from his participation depend on the activities of the others.”[37]