PROVIDENCE – A top aide to House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi resigned Thursday amid allegations he was a “silent” partner in a marijuana growing business at the same time he had a high-level insider’s view of the State House decision-making about the growth of Rhode Island’s marijuana industry.
A Shekarchi spokesman confirmed Thursday that John Conti, the $136,032 senior deputy chief of staff to the House Speaker, resigned on Thursday morning, before WPRI-TV aired a report on Conti’s “Troubling Ties” to the marijuana industry and an alleged mob figure.
The report centered in part on Rhode Island State Police findings during an investigation of undisclosed owners of Organic Bees, cited in a consent decree posted by the Department of Business Regulation.
“On or about February 10, 2021,” the report said, “the RISP supplied the Department with certain information relative to the execution of a search warrant, which resulted in the seizure and search of a cellular telephone belonging to Raymond R. Jenkins III, a.k.a ‘Scarface’ (‘Jenkins’) of…Johnston,” that contained “thousands of pages of text messages, e-mails, and pictures.”
Texts to and from Conti appear under the heading: “Undisclosed Interest Holders, Key Persons, and/or Individuals with Managing Control.”
On April 15, 2021, “as a result of the RISP investigation, Jenkins was arraigned on three criminal charges: perjury, giving a false document to DBR, and conspiracy to commit giving a false document to DBR.” On July 29, 2021, “Jenkins pled nolo contendere to one count of perjury for making a false material declaration on a medical marijuana cultivator application to DBR, [stating] that he was a trimmer in Respondent’s operation when he was really an owner, according to the DBR posting.”
Jenkins received a two-year suspended sentence with probation for his plea.
Conti has not been charged.
“Mr. Conti had no role in the business organization, Organic Bees,” Conti’s attorney, Jimmy Burchfield Jr., said in a statement to WPRI. “Mr. Conti has been employed by the House of Representatives honorably serving under four speakers since first hired in December 2006.”
Shekarchi spokesman Larry Berman issued this statement on Thursday in response to Journal inquiries: “Speaker Shekarchi takes allegations like those reported in the WPRI story that aired this evening extremely seriously, and does not tolerate conduct of this kind. Speaker Shekarchi has absolutely no knowledge of the business entity known as Organic Bees or any of the other allegations asserted within the story.”
Under the consent decree issued by DBR, Organic Bees had until March 21, 2022, to complete sale of its inventory to Rhode Island’s licensed medical marijuana dispensaries, known as “compassion centers,” and use the proceeds exclusively to “repay the Unsecured Convertible Promissory Note dated January 1, 2020 issued by [Organic Bees] to Cordos Development & Associates LLC.”
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: RI Speaker Shekarchi’s aide who allegedly failed to disclose ties to marijuana business resigns
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