Virginia state Senator Louise Lucas, an 82 year old great grandmother and one of the most powerful Democrats in the state, has been charged with drug trafficking and money laundering in what the Justice Department claims was a family run marijuana operation.
An eight count indictment unsealed on Thursday, October 22, charges Lucas and six other defendants. Lucas surrendered to authorities the same day.
The DOJ alleges Lucas led what it calls the “Lucas Enterprise,” a tight circle of family members and associates that included her two daughters and her grandson. According to the indictment, she approved and directed the group’s activities, including getting and distributing 100 kilograms or more of marijuana, which is roughly 220 pounds, and overseeing the laundering of the money from those sales. Money laundering means running illegal cash through businesses or accounts to make it look legitimate.
The full list of charges includes racketeering conspiracy, which means committing crimes as part of an ongoing organized group, along with marijuana distribution, money laundering, maintaining a property used for drugs, possessing guns to further drug trafficking, and wire fraud. There is also a count of honest services fraud through bribery, which accuses a public official of trading on their office for personal gain. The charges vary by defendant.
Louise Lucas has been one of Virginia’s loudest champions of legal marijuana, and in 2021 she partnered in opening The Cannabis Outlet in Portsmouth. The DOJ alleges her daughter Theresa Lucas-Lamb and Lucas-Lamb’s son, Ryan Eichelberger, bought marijuana, supervised its distribution and managed the shop for the enterprise.
FBI Director Kash Patel claimed Lucas used her position as chair of the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee, the panel that writes Virginia’s budget, to shield the operation from criminal scrutiny and to push legislation that would benefit her and her family financially.
The charges come months after FBI agents searched Lucas’ Portsmouth office and the cannabis shop in May. Court records in the case were sealed for months, but earlier this year the DOJ sent letters telling journalists, politicians and others who had talked with Lucas that their conversations had been picked up on a court approved wiretap, which is a secret recording of phone calls that a judge signs off on.
Lucas called the May raid an attempt to intimidate her. On Thursday, she wrote on X that the FBI, the Justice Department and the full weight of the federal government had been turned against an 82 year old great grandmother, and she said she will not be “bullied.”
Louise Lucas, a Democrat from Portsmouth, has served in the Virginia Senate for more than three decades and has been a steady critic of Trump. Being charged is not a conviction, and she has not been found guilty of any crime.
