A powerful Democrat in the Virginia state legislature was charged on Thursday with running a criminal drug conspiracy through a marijuana dispensary business.
The legislator, L. Louise Lucas of Portsmouth, is an outspoken critic of the Trump administration who has long been a leading proponent of legal marijuana. She is also accused of conspiring to distribute marijuana, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The charges stemmed from an investigation that began during the Biden administration.
The evidence in the indictment against her lists business transactions of her marijuana dispensary, and a social media post she made in 2022 in which she wrote: “I’m a 78 year grandma who legalized pot and now has her own cannibis (sic) store. And I’m the last thing standing between the GOP and total control of Virginia.”
Ms. Lucas, the first Black woman to hold the post of Senate president pro tempore in Virginia, spearheaded an effort to redraw the state’s congressional district map heavily in favor of Democrats. That effort was eventually thrown out by the courts.
In May, F.B.I. agents searched Ms. Lucas’s business offices. A lawmaker for more than 30 years, she owns a network of group homes for older adults and a marijuana dispensary.
Ms. Lucas has denounced the investigation as an attempt to use federal law enforcement power to “intimidate and silence the voices who stood up to them.”
In February, after Republicans complained that the proposed Virginia political map was unfair to their voters, Ms. Lucas, who has been unafraid to throw punches, was characteristically blunt on social media.
“You all started it,” she replied to Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas. “We,” she said, using an expletive, “finished it.”
She has become known for her trolling of Republicans, often skewering the former governor Glenn Youngkin, and helping block his efforts to use state incentives to draw a sports arena to Alexandria.
But she has also singled out the current governor, Abigail Spanberger, a fellow Democrat, over the issue of tax breaks for data centers, nicknaming her “Data Center Diva.”
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