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How state marijuana legalization became a boon for corruption
By making local officials the gatekeepers for million-dollar businesses, states created a breeding ground for bribery and favoritism.
www.politico.com
By making local officials the gatekeepers for million-dollar businesses, states created a breeding ground for bribery and favoritism.
Jasiel Correia’s star was rising.
The son of Cape Verdean immigrants in the working-class Massachusetts port city of Fall River – famed as the home of Lizzie Borden -- Correia was a home-grown prodigy. At 23, he was elected mayor, fielding congratulatory calls from Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Joe Kennedy.
That was in 2015. Four years later, just a week before his re-election race, federal agents ignominiously led him away from his home in handcuffs and charged him with attempting to extort cannabis companies of $600,000 in exchange for granting them lucrative licenses to sell weed in his impoverished city.
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Money is the lubricant that makes this kind of transition to corruption both easy & tempting.