La Mota echoes in Fed probe of CA weed bribery

Newly unsealed docs show cannabis companies used cash in brown paper bags and dubious "consulting agreements" in widespread California bribery scheme

Then-candidate Tina Kotek plays pickleball with La Mota cofounder Aaron Mitchell at a fundraiser for Kotek in 2022. Mitchell and cofounding Rosa Cazares gave over $68,000 in cash contributions to Kotek’s successful campaign, which Kotek later donated to a nonprofit.

A sprawling cannabis licensing bribery scheme involving city officials in the Los Angeles suburbs may provide clues to the purpose and future of a federal criminal probe into cannabis firm La Mota’s efforts to persuade Oregon officials to ease regulations on its industry, according to a recently unsealed federal plea agreement and reporting by the Los Angeles Times.

A bunch of bribery in California

Robert Tafoya, the former city attorney for Baldwin Park, California, pleaded guilty in 2022 to his role in funneling bribe payments from unnamed cannabis companies to city councilors to buy their approval of cannabis retail licenses after California legalized recreational cannabis in 2016. The plea agreement, originally sealed, was made public December 10, 2024. It recounts a tale of cash payments in exchange for regulatory favors that will sound familiar to Oregonians.

In 2016, California voters approved a ballot measure to legalize the the use, sale, cultivation and manufacture of cannabis for recreational use. In 2017, Baldwin Park established its cannabis permitting process. The ballot measure gave to cities and counties most of the power to regulate recreational cannabis, most notably by giving cities broad authority to process and issue, or deny, recreational cannabis permits for dispensaries and other facilities.

Sensing an opportunity, then-city councilor Richard Pacheco established a bribery scheme involving an intermediary posing as a consultant:

[A] company seeking a marijuana permit would pay the intermediary for supposed consulting services, the intermediary would then split a portion of the money with Pacheco, and Pacheco would then vote in favor of the company’s desired marijuana permit in exchange for the payment.

Tafoya, an attorney, provided the form for the fraudulent consulting agreement to disguise the bribery payments as payments for consulting, according to the plea agreement.

The plea agreement references, but does not name, another Baldwin Park city councilor with whom Tafoya conspired to obtain cannabis bribes. The Los Angeles Times reported then-city councilor and now state senator Susan Rubio, a Democrat, is the only city councilor who matches the description in the plea agreement.

The unnamed city councilor who might be Rubio received a $15,000 payment “in cash in an envelope” while serving as councilor but running in a primary for higher office, with another $15,000 payment coming after the person won the primary and was competing in the general election, according to the Times. The cash was later divvied up into smaller sums, distributed to an unknown number of straw donors who contributed the funds to the candidate’s campaign to create the appearance of broad support for the candidacy.

Rubio’s spokesperson told the Times she “has no reason to believe that she would be included in any criminal allegations.”

In 2022, the Times published a big story about widespread cannabis industry bribery of local officials in California, titled “‘$250,000 cash in a brown paper bag.’ How legal weed unleashed corruption in California.”

Cash was king in Oregon, too

While California’s legalization gave a lot of cannabis regulatory power, and bribery leverage, to local officials, Oregon’s version is more concentrated at the state level. California campaign finance law limits cash contributions to $100; in 2022, Oregon allowed unlimited cash contributions. And so, when Oregon cannabis firm La Mota’s co-founder Rosa Cazares in 2022 wanted regulatory relief, she went to Salem. Cazares, her co-founder Aaron Mitchell and others affiliated with La Mota showered Oregon Democrats with tens of thousands in on-the-books campaign contributions, often via cash contained in, yes, brown paper bags. .

Oregon Governor Tina Kotek received over $68,000 from La Mota, and attended a fundraiser at a house rented by Cazares and Mitchell from which they were later evicted for non-payment of rent.

Then Labor Commissioner and now Congresswoman Val Hoyle received $20,000 in her state campaign account, but returned it when she began running for Congress and later received $5,800 from Cazares and Mitchell in seven separate money orders to benefit her congressional race.

Other Democrats including State Treasurer Tobias Read, Senate President Rob Wagner and others received smaller amounts from La Mota-associated sources. Kotek, Hoyle and the rest either returned the donations or donated a corresponding amount to charities once La Mota became politically radioactive following public disclosure of its efforts to influence state cannabis policy.

The reason La Mota’s scheme was exposed was, of course, its especially cozy relationship with then Secretary of State Shemia Fagan. La Mota and friends gave Fagan $75,000 in on-the-books campaign contributions. It also entered into a $10,000-per-month “consulting agreement” while her office was completing an audit critical of the state’s regulation of the cannabis industry. Fagan, who was soon to resign, claimed her consulting work focused on helping La Mota expand into New Mexico.

After Fagan’s resignation, the U.S. Attorney for Oregon issued subpoenas to state agencies seeking documents related to La Mota’s involvement in state politics, suggesting a federal criminal investigation was underway in Oregon, too. Hoyle, then a first-term congresswoman, fought efforts by her former state agency to recover text messages from her personal phone related to her championing a $554,000 grant to a nonprofit formed by Cazares and another La Mota-affiliated person. Hoyle eventually turned over the messages following media and public scrutiny.

Unsurprisingly, Hoyle’s involvement with La Mota was an issue in her ultimately successful 2024 re-election campaign. During that campaign, Hoyle repeatedly insisted she was not the subject of a federal investigation, telling The Oregonian, “I’d know if I was under investigation by the FBI.”

The office of the U.S. Attorney for Oregon did not respond to two requests for comment for this story. Federal criminal investigators are notoriously tightlipped about their work, as evidenced by how long it took the details of their work in California to surface.