Lucas was charged with five federal offenses involving a cannabis business she co-owns.
A top Virginia Democrat is facing charges in connection with an alleged bribery, marijuana distribution, and money laundering scheme.
Virginia State Senator L. Louise Lucas was charged with five federal offenses involving a cannabis business she co-owns, according to an indictment filed in the Eastern District of Virginia. Those charges include 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.
Lucas surrendered to authorities on Thursday, according to the Department of Justice. She was one of seven people charged in the alleged scheme, which authorities say ran from 2019 through 2026.
Lucas issued a statement on Thursday saying she “will not be intimidated” by the Trump administration.
“Today, the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the full weight of the federal government have been wielded against an 82-year-old great-grandmother,” she said. “I grew up under Jim Crow. I’ve seen what happens when people in power try to silence those who stand up to them. I spent my life fighting back, and I’m not stopping now. I’m not new to this. I’m true to this.”
Authorities allege the 82-year-old lawmaker “led a criminal enterprise (the Lucas Enterprise) comprised of a close-knit group of associates and family members, including her two daughters and her grandson.”
Lucas is accused of approving and directing the activities of the enterprise, including arranging for the acquisition and distribution of 100 kilograms or more of marijuana and supervising the laundering of marijuana proceeds.
In a wire-tapped phone call in February of this year, Lucas told an unindicted co-conspirator that this was “our last chance at generational wealth.”
“I’ve got too old to not be greedy,” she said.
Lucas, who has served in the state senate since 1991, including as the president pro tempore since 2020, allegedly used her political position to insulate the Lucas Enterprise from criminal scrutiny and to influence legislation benefiting the enterprise. Recreational marijuana sales are illegal in Virginia, for now; the licensed retail sale of marijuana will be permitted in the state beginning July 1, 2027. Current state law allows for possession of marijuana for adults over 21.
The indictment also accuses Lucas’s business partner, Carlton Upton Jr., of making materially false attestations on an application for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) for their company, Virginia Freedom Life, in 2020. Upton was granted a loan in the amount of $11,800. Virginia Freedom Life is the umbrella business that oversees The CBD Shoppe and The Cannabis Outlet.
Lucas and her daughter, Lisa Lucas-Burke, opened The Cannabis Outlet in 2021. Lucas’s other daughter, Theresa Lucas-Lamb, and Lucas-Lamb’s son, Ryan Eichelberger, allegedly acquired marijuana and supervised its distribution and managed the store.
In August 2022, prosecutors say Lucas paid $750,000 for a 100 percent stake in a business that was the shell holding company for a co-conspirator’s expected Virginia recreational marijuana license and then allegedly failed to report that information on her required Statement of Economic Interests forms.
“Lucas allegedly met with the co-conspirator at her office at the capitol complex to receive a partial repayment and spoke with other officials, including legislators, about the co-conspirator’s qualification for a recreational marijuana license depending on her receipt of a bribery payment from the co-conspirator,” authorities say.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said the indictment “reveal[s] the behavior of a public servant who put her own financial interests before the people she was elected to serve.”
“Our federal prosecutors will continue to be guided by the facts and evidence that led a grand jury to indict Ms. Lucas and her alleged co-conspirators,” he added.
Blanche emphasized that the investigation has been ongoing for years and began prior to President Trump’s second term.
FBI Director Kash Patel similarly accused Lucas of abusing her position of trust and orchestrating a five-year scheme worth an estimated $4.5 million.
“The charges allege Lucas and a close-knit group of family members and associates used Lucas’ position as Chairwoman of the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee to protect their criminal marijuana enterprise — the ‘Lucas Enterprise’ — insulating the business from criminal scrutiny and influencing legislation to financially benefit themselves,” he said.
The six other defendants are Lisa Lucas Burke, Prince Albert William Hudson III, Ryan Eichelberger, Theresa Lucas-Lamb, Carlton Upton Jr. and Tameka Johnson.
Lucas, who has been at times both an ally and critic of Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger, was one of the principal architects of Democrats’ attempted gerrymander of Virginia’s congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections that would have given the party a major leg up in ten of the commonwealth’s 11 congressional districts. Lucas played a key role in shepherding Spanberger’s left-wing agenda through the General Assembly earlier this year, including legislation hiking a slew of state taxes, restricting gun rights, awarding voting rights to convicted felons, and enshrining a right to abortion in the state constitution.
However, Lucas has publicly attacked Spanberger and other Democrats on several occasions, including claiming the governor lacked “credibility” and suggesting that Senators Mark Warner (D, Va.) and Tim Kaine (D, Va.) were sitting in the “cuck chair in the corner” after they shared reservations about the most aggressive version of her gerrymandering proposal.