A convicted Beverly Hills artist with an extended historical past of fraud pleaded responsible to a different on Friday, admitting he defrauded traders of greater than $18 million by constructing a faux hashish empire whereas serving a sentence on a earlier legal case.
Mark Roy Anderson, 69, pleaded responsible to 2 counts of fraud, the US Legal professional's Workplace mentioned. He duped his victims with false claims that he ran firms invested in hemp farms and cannabis-infused retail merchandise, in addition to a sham bottling enterprise.
Anderson, his traders have found, is a convicted con artist who started defrauding individuals a minimum of three a long time in the past. He launched his alleged hashish enterprise instantly after his Could 2019 launch from a federal jail in Texas the place he had served greater than 11 years for an oil funding rip-off, federal authorities mentioned.
Within the first scheme to which he pleaded responsible on Friday, Anderson deceived traders in 2020 and 2021 to offer financing for his firm, referred to as Harvest Farm Group, to reap and course of hemp grown on his farm right into a cannabidiol isolate (CBD) of medical grade – a chemical. present in marijuana – to be offered for a considerable revenue.
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https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-06/beverly-hills-scammer-pleads-guilty-to-18-million-cannabis-con
