Storage Fee

The Virginia State Bar Disciplinary Board accepted an attorney’s license revocation for criminal conduct described in an agreed statement of facts in the criminal case appended to the revocation order

During all times relevant to the Criminal Information, co-conspirator Donald’ Rogers was the owner of VA Premier  Pawn, which was a Federal Firearm Licensee (FFL) that was authorized to sell firearms. Rogers purchased wholesale quantities of THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol) products, including marijuana, THC vape pens, THC wax, and THC edible products, from sources outside the Commonwealth of Virginia. Rogers personally made payments for these shipments, met the shipments, stored the products in the Eastern District of Virginia; and transferred them in smaller quantities to co-conspirators, including Capehatt, Sines, and the defendant, for retail sale in the Eastern District of Virginia and elsewhere.

The defendant and Rogers have known one another since approximately 2018. In 2021, after the defendant introduced Rogers to Capehart so that they could work together to distribute marijuana, the defendant referred customers, including his legal clients, to Rogers for the illegal purchase of THC products. Eventuall)’, the defendant offered to Rogers the use of a room in his law office on South Independence Boulevard for the storage of Rogers’s THC products. The defendant knew that Rogers was storing marijuana and related products at the law office, among other reasons, because the defendant helped Rogers move shipments of boxes and duffle bags filled with THC products into the law office.

In exchange for his use of the law office, Rogers paid a portion of the law office’s monthly rent for several months beginning in ]ate 2021. The defendant gave Rogers a key to the law office to facilitate Rogers’s access to it. Until Rogers began using another facility to store THC products, in or about May 2022, Rogers.stored approximately 1,000 pounds of marijuana and marijuana products in the defendant’s law office. The street value of the marijuana stored at the defendant’s law office ranged in value between $800,000 and $1 .6 million.

Rogers also stored at the defendant’s law office, with the defendant’s full knowledge and consent, cash proceeds from the illegal sale of THC products .. ln one photograph taken in the defendant’s law office, co-conspirator Nicholas Capehart posed with drug proceeds in excess of one hundred thousand dollars cash, which was being counted to prepare for Rogers’s purchase of a new wholesale shipment of THC products from an out-of-state supplier. The defendant’s diplomas and legal credentials appear on the wall behind Capehart.

In addition to storing THC products that Rogers purchased wholesale, the defendant received from Rogers smaller quantities of THC products, approximately 15 pounds per month, that the defendant himself sold to retail customers. In all, Rogers sold the defendant approximately 70 pounds of THC products.

The defendant received at least one firearm from Rogers, to include a Sig Sauer P229 Legion 9mm pistol.

 When the defendant possessed a fireann, he knew that he was an unlawful user of controlled substances, namely, Adderall (amphetamine salts), cocaine, opiates, and THC. The defendant habitually kept at least one firearm in his Jaw office while he allowed Rogers to store THC products there.

On or about April 20, 2021, Capehart, who was vacationing in Las Vegas, Nevada, sought advice from the defendant on sending marijuana products back to the Hampton Roads region of the Eastern District of Virginia. Although the defendant did not represent Capehart in any civil or criminal case, Capehart sought the defendant’s advice because Capehart knew that the defendant was an attorney. In text messages, the defendant told Capehart to commingle the marijuana products among “some type of souvenirs and buy some Saran Wrap and wrap whatever you put it in well.” The defendant further advised Capehart to address the package not to the defendant, but to the defendant’s law firm, to send the package to the defendant’s law office, and to “[w]rite legal mail on there somewhere too,” reasoning that this would ”make it privileged and the cops would have a hell of a time getting a warrant to get around that privilege.”

(Mike Frisch)