Marijuana Union Organizer goes Corrupt
According to FBI, a medical marijuana organizer in California has been accused of bribery and union-rigging. According to official documents submitted by the FBI, Dan Rush – an organizer who unionizes medical marijuana workers – used his influence corruptly. What he did was manipulate unions’ decisions for bribes from stakeholders in the same cannabis industry. Rush was charged with “labor union conflict of interest payments” and “honest services fraud.” A federal warrant has officially been made for his Rush was indicted on charges of “labor union conflict of interest payments” and “honest services fraud,” and a federal warrant was issued for his apprehension.
Before he was charged, Rush worked in the food industry. He was an organizer with United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). UFCW currently represents over a million people in North America. In addition, he had his own place in medicinal marijuana politics. He directly worked with various dispensaries in California and is among the board of directors of the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform. He established himself when he helped Bay Area medical marijuana workers get unionized in 2010 and officially became known as the head of California’s marijuana movements.
According to the FBI’s affidavit, Dan Rush used his influential position within the UFCW to rig the union’s processes in favor of medical marijuana dispensary owners. The document alleges that Rush received “payments of money or other things of value” on behalf of dispensary operators whose employees were members of the UFCW, and thus directly impacted by the union’s decisions. Invoking federal labor statutes, the FBI argues these payments constitute an unlawful conflict of interest, which Rush exploited to subvert unionization for personal gain.
The FBI’s document states that Dan Rush’s bribery exploited unionization for his own profit. He also used marijuana’s unofficial status so that he would not have to pay back a huge loan. Rush asked for over $600,000 for the purpose of opening his own business. However, he did not use that money for any type of business; he used it to pay off old debts and visit casinos. Years later he said that he was unable to pay back the loan because “that the original cash — stemming as it did from medical marijuana, pre-2010 — was unclean, and any attempt to recover the loan might not go so well.”
Dan Rush is now in prison for “labor union conflict of interest payments and honest services fraud.” The first charge was one of twenty years and the second one was five years. This investigation started long ago in 2010 when marijuana industry members had warned them. According to the FBI this investigation included, “recorded telephone conversations and wires worn by witnesses including Marc Terbeek, Rush’s attorney who started cooperating with the FBI in January of this year, but may also be prosecuted.”
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