Seattle: IRS Agent Busted for Extorting Medical Cannabis Dispensary
A Seattle Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent has been charged with soliciting a bribe and accepting payment from a local medical cannabis dispensary owner, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorneys Office.
Paul Hurley, 42, was charged Monday in U.S. District Court after he allegedly asked for $20,000 cash from a dispensary owner in exchange for giving lenience in a tax audit. Hurley was the first to make contact with the dispensary owner, who didn’t seek leniency themselves.
According to the press release, Hurley presented the owner with a tax bill totaling over $290,000, saying that he had saved the businessman more than $1 million. He then asked for $20,000 in exchange for this help.
The owner quickly contacted authorities, who witnessed a money exchange between the man and the agent. Hurley was arrested after the exchange.
Hurley, who has been with the IRS since 2009, has been charged with three counts of soliciting and agreeing to receive a bribe by a public official. The offenses are punishable by up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
– TheJointBlog
calicorock
This is partly a result of the Washington State Senate’s failure to craft sensible marijuana policy legislation during the 2015 legislative session in Olympia (WA).Rather than crafting focused legislation regulating medical dispensaries, (as directed by voters in 2012), the Washington State Senate went completely off of the rails on instead creating new State criminal marijuana felonies, where non existed prior to Statewide legalization. Especially harsh anti-patient legislation was directed squarely at Washington’s sick, elderly disabled, and the dispensaries providing medicine. I’d be very surprised if this is just the outside peel of this entire rotten onion.This is what happens when citizens don’t vote during mid-term elections and allow the worst politicians to seize power for years.