A high-profile figure in the Central Coast’s marijuana industry has agreed to plead guilty to bribing a San Luis Obispo County supervisor, the first charges to be made public in what a spokesman for the federal prosecutor’s office in Los Angeles called “an ongoing public corruption investigation.”
Helios “Bobby” Dayspring, 35, who owns marijuana farms and dispensaries up and down the Central Coast, will plead guilty to one count each of federal programs bribery and filing a false tax return, according to a plea agreement filed in federal court and unsealed Wednesday.
Dayspring also agreed to pay $3.4 million in restitution — the amount he kept from the Internal Revenue Service by underreporting his income — and to cooperate with prosecutors and agents from the IRS and FBI who are said to be probing corruption in San Luis Obispo County.
Dayspring’s lawyer, Sandra Brown-Bodner, said her client “has fully accepted responsibility for his actions, has been cooperating and will continue to cooperate with the government.” He is scheduled to appear in court on Aug. 25, having signed his plea agreement late last month.
The document is a sordid account of how a wheeler and dealer in the state’s nascent, ill-regulated marijuana industry corrupted one of San Luis Obispo County’s most powerful politicians, who was apparently brazen enough to write in a text message to his illicit benefactor that he deserved “one giant French kiss wrapped in money” after fighting off a proposal to ban outdoor cannabis grows. [Read More @ The LA Times]
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