Federal prosecutors have charged Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas, 82, with leading what they describe as a family-run marijuana enterprise operating behind her cannabis business, according to a 45-page indictment unsealed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Lucas surrendered to authorities Thursday, Oct. 22, and has denied wrongdoing.
The Louise Lucas indictment contains eight counts, and Lucas is named in five of them: racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute marijuana, money laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud and maintaining a drug-involved premises, according to the Justice Department. Six co-defendants are charged alongside her, and the remaining counts include firearms and wire fraud charges against other defendants, the Virginia Mercury reported.
What The Indictment Alleges
Prosecutors say Lucas has led the scheme since at least 2019 and directed the purchase and sale of more than 100 kilograms of illegal marijuana, CBS News reported. Members of the alleged conspiracy used several business entities to hide where the money came from, according to NBC News. FBI Director Kash Patel estimated the alleged five-year scheme was worth about $4.5 million.
Her co-defendants include her daughters, Lisa Lucas-Burke and Theresa Lucas-Lamb, and her grandson, Ryan Eichelberger. Prosecutors also charged Carlton Upton Jr., Lucas’ business partner in VA Freedom Life, the umbrella company for The CBD Shoppe and The Cannabis Outlet, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
“The charges alleged in this indictment reveal the behavior of a public servant who put her own financial interests before the people she was elected to serve,” U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement.
The indictment alleges Lucas used her position in the state Senate, including her role as chair of the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee, to shield the operation from criminal scrutiny and build wealth for her family. In an intercepted February 2026 phone call with an unindicted co-conspirator about pending recreational marijuana legislation, Lucas allegedly said, “This is our last chance at generational wealth,” adding, “I’ve got too old to not be greedy.”
In a March call with a Virginia state lawmaker, Lucas allegedly said she needed the recreational market to get started because “when I did it, it was obviously illegal,” CBS News reported. The indictment also alleges a senior law enforcement official warned her more than once that selling marijuana was illegal.
Background On The Investigation
FBI agents searched Lucas’ Portsmouth office and The Cannabis Outlet, the High Street shop she co-owns next door, in May, nearly six months before the indictment was unsealed. The investigation began during the Biden administration, CBS News reported.
Prosecutors also allege Virginia’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services cited The Cannabis Outlet in 2023 and 2024 for selling cannabis products that didn’t comply with state law.
Adults 21 and older can legally possess marijuana in Virginia, and medical cannabis is sold through licensed dispensaries. Recreational retail sales aren’t legal yet, but lawmakers approved them in July, and regulated sales are expected to begin next year, according to CBS News.
Lucas’ Political Career
Lucas got her start in politics in 1984, when she became the first Black woman elected to the Portsmouth City Council. She won her state Senate seat in 1991 and is now the chamber’s president pro tempore, the first woman and first Black person to hold the role.
She won reelection in 2023 and isn’t on the ballot again until 2027. This year, Lucas was a leading voice behind the Democratic redistricting push and used social media to needle Republicans, President Donald Trump and even Virginia’s two Democratic U.S. senators. The new congressional map passed in an April referendum before the Virginia Supreme Court threw it out in May. Lucas sponsored a marijuana legalization bill in 2021 and has backed other decriminalization efforts. Virginia’s 40 state senators earn $18,000 a year, a salary that hasn’t changed since 1988.
Reaction And What’s Next
Lucas pushed back in a statement on X, saying the full weight of the federal government had been “wielded against an 82-year-old great-grandmother.” Gov. Abigail Spanberger said Lucas is presumed innocent and criticized the timing of the charges, which came weeks before the November elections. Lucas-Burke is running for the Portsmouth City Council.
At a press conference in Norfolk on Thursday, Blanche said there was “nothing improper” about the timing, noting Lucas isn’t on the ballot this year, and said the investigation started long before the current administration. Patel said Lucas has “many things to answer for.”
The investigation drew political criticism well before the charges. In September, U.S. Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va., said federal authorities had notified him that his phone calls with Lucas were monitored, and he accused the Justice Department of becoming Trump’s “own personal law firm.”
The case now moves forward in federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia.
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