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A considerable Massachusetts sheriff has been arrested after federal investigators narrate he shook down a national hashish retailer for more than $50,000 worth of inventory earlier than the firm went public.

The FBI stated it arrested Steven Tompkins, the sheriff of Suffolk county – which encompasses Boston and the outlying counties of Chelsea and Revere – for allegedly threatening to revoke his office’s partnership with the company unless it agreed to the deal.

Tompkins became as soon as also accused of annoying to be repaid after the cost of his shares in the hashish company sank below his initial funding, in line with court docket documents.

Brokers took Tompkins into custody on Friday in Florida.

“Elected officials, in particular these in laws enforcement, are expected to be ethical, precise and laws abiding – now not self-serving,” US licensed decent Leah Foley stated in a assertion.

An indictment against Tompkins, who has served as sheriff since 2013, charged him with two counts of extortion below color of official dazzling. Every count carries a most sentence of two decades in federal jail.

Described as a “ubiquitous, tickled-handing Democrat in Boston political circles” by the Boston Globe, Tompkins oversees the ideal county correctional machine in Massachusetts.

The sheriff has beforehand attain below the scrutiny of authorities. In 2023, he paid a $12,000 stunning for rising a no-train job for his niece several years earlier and for asking subordinates to slump private errands. He also paid but another $2,500 stunning for asking enterprise owners to get rid of his political opponent’s campaign signs from their windows.

“Every person of us in elected office is held to a excessive accepted, and at any time when there are laws enforcement officials that there’s anything else coming into demand with the laws, it is a in actual fact serious allegation,” stated Michelle Wu, Boston’s mayor, to journalists on Friday.

Tompkins’s indictment is likely to solid a highlight on Massachusetts’ legalized marijuana industry, which has attain below scrutiny for the reason that teach legalized the drug in 2016. Two years earlier than Tompkins’s arrest, Massachusetts fashioned a Hashish Serve an eye on Commission after a collection of scandals, including the dismissal of its top commissioner for bullying and making racially mistaken feedback.

The indictment against Tompkins does now not name the hashish company fascinated by the alleged map. But media reports have identified it as Ascend Mass, phase of Ascend Hashish, a multi-teach retailer. A terminate buddy of Tompkins, Andrea Cabral, as soon as ran Ascend Mass.

Per documents outlining the conditions of his indictment, Tompkins allegedly urged a member of the company he “desired to discover in on the inventory so [he] can also have faith some hashish money”.

He became as soon as in the muse rebuffed nonetheless persevered to tension an Ascend official that the company wanted his cooperation to resume its license. The corporate then sold 28,000 shares for $50,000 to Tompkins.

They rose in cost to $138,403 after Ascend went public in 2021 nonetheless later sank below the cost of his holdings. Tompkins then allegedly demanded a repayment on his $50,000 to pay for “his campaign and private charges”.

“We get what the sheriff noticed as an effortless manner to have faith a expeditiously buck on the sly is clearcut corruption below federal laws,” Ted Docks, FBI special agent responsible of the agency’s Boston division, stated in a assertion.

“The voters of Suffolk county deserve higher, now not a one who is accused of trading on his space to bankroll his have political and monetary future. Public servants must be held to the highest of ethical requirements, and these falling immediate will be rooted out.”