Virginia Democratic Power Broker Charged With Drug Trafficking, Money Laundering – The Epoch Times

Virginia state Sen. Louise Lucas, a Democrat from Portsmouth, listens to a debate on the Senate floor on Feb. 17, 2026, in Richmond, Va. AP Photo/Ryan M. Kelly, File

Federal prosecutors unsealed charges against Democratic Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas, the chamber’s president pro tempore, on Oct. 22 for allegedly helping lead a criminal drug trafficking and money laundering operation.

A 45-page indictment that was filed in the Eastern District of Virginia charged Lucas and six others with racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute marijuana, conspiracy to launder money, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, and maintaining a drug-involved premises.

The powerful Democratic senator approved and directed criminal activities to benefit her Lucas Enterprise, Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a news conference announcing the charges, noting that she also allegedly supervised the laundering of proceeds from marijuana sales.

He also said that Lucas is alleged to have “used her political influence to demand and accept a bribe and attempted to influence Virginia legislation for the benefit of herself and her family.”

Also in the news conference, Blanche said that Lucas and the six other co-defendants were “arrested or surrendered for allegedly participating in a large-scale RICO drug trafficking and money laundering conspiracy,” adding that they are currently in federal custody.

Following the announcement of the charges, Lucas wrote in a post on X that she believes that the charges are political in nature and suggested that racial animus also played a role.

“I grew up under Jim Crow,” she wrote, referring to a collection of local and state laws that enforced racial segregation and ended in the mid-20th century. “I’ve seen what happens when people in power try to silence those who stand up to them.”

While Lucas did not elaborate on how the charges relate to segregation, she wrote that she “will not be intimidated” and “will not back down.”

The charges were filed after the FBI in May searched Lucas’s hometown office and a cannabis shop in which she has a stake, she confirmed at the time. At the time of the search, Lucas, who is a critic of President Donald Trump, characterized it as an attempt to intimidate her.

A spokesman for Lucas, Brian Woolfolk, chief counsel for the L. Louise Lucas Legal Defense Fund, told media outlets on Oct. 22 that the charges are “the circus we always expected it to be, and we will wait for further details to have a more specific response.”

The 82-year-old Democratic lawmaker has spent decades rising through Virginia politics and has served in the state Senate since 1992, where she is president pro tempore, overseeing the chamber in the lieutenant governor’s absence.

She also leads the powerful state Senate finance committee, through which all legislation with any budget impact must flow.

An advocate of legalizing marijuana, Lucas partnered in opening the shop, The Cannabis Outlet, in 2021, selling hemp and cannabidiol (CBD) products, according to local media reports.

“Let’s talk about pot,” she wrote in a social media post on X in 2022. “Yes, we legalized it and I even opened the Cannabis Outlet after we did! But the job isn’t done. People are still in jail for something that is legal today.”

Earlier this year, Lucas sponsored a bill, SB62, that would create a process in which incarcerated individuals or those on community supervision for some felony offenses, including marijuana-related offenses, could get an automatic hearing to consider whether the sentences should be modified.

While marijuana is legal to possess in Virginia, recreational retail sales of the drug are not yet underway, though shops across the state do sell other cannabis-derived products.

Lucas also runs a network of companies that provide residential, transportation, and other services to adults with intellectual disabilities, her biography on a state government website states.

FBI Director Kash Patel told reporters in a news conference on the morning of Oct. 22 that the senator is “truly the epitome of hypocrisy for a public official.”

“During her time as Virginia State Senator, instead of enforcing the law, she was actually breaking the law as alleged in the indictment, and then using her position of power and public trust to defend and deflect against her own criminal enterprise,” Patel said.

Woolfolk’s office and the FBI did not immediately respond to an Epoch Times request for comment on Oct. 22.