Guilty plea in $1 million bribe offer by marijuana growers to Siskiyou County sheriff

One of two marijuana growers charged with offering the Siskiyou County sheriff a $1 million bribe in 2017 pleaded guilty in federal court in Sacramento Tuesday in a plea deal that allows her to escape trial.

Gaosheng Laitinen, 41, of Cottage Grove, Minnesota, pleaded guilty in a Zoom hearing before U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez to conspiracy to commit bribery and conspiracy to manufacture marijuana, felony counts that could have netted her up to 20 years in prison.

Laitinen was charged along with her brother, Chi Meng Yang, 36, in an audacious scheme to bribe then-Sheriff Jon Lopey for to buy protection for marijuana grows in the county, prosecutors say.

The U.S. Attorneys Office in Sacramento said Yang offered Lopey $1 million during a meeting in the sheriff's Yreka office on May 17, 2017, "in exchange for his assistance with an interstate marijuana distribution business that Yang and others were in the process of organizing in Siskiyou County."

Immediately after the meeting, Lopey called the FBI and agents began recording subsequent meetings.

"Because Yang's offer of $1 million depended on Yang securing and profiting from certain out-of-state marijuana licenses, Yang and Laitinen promised to pay the sheriff a total of $80,000 if he would exempt eight properties from the Siskiyou County ban against outdoor marijuana grows," U.S. Attorney Phil Talbert's office said. "Yang and Laitinen gave the sheriff several initial payments, totaling $10,500 in cash.

"These funds were immediately seized by the FBI as evidence."

Yang remains in custody in the Sacramento County Main Jail and his case is pending.

Laitinen appeared by Zoom from her home in Minnesota and was ordered to appear in Sacramento for sentencing June 7. As part of her plea, Laitinen agreed to forfeit her share in the $10,500 and two pieces of property in Siskiyou County, and prosecutors said they would recommend a sentence at "the low end" of federal guidelines

"Ms. Laitinen was, like many people, involved in the California compliant legal cannabis industry," her attorney, Mark Reichel, wrote in an email statement to The Sacramento Bee. "When the county she was living and working in rescinded their ordinances based on likely racially-biased reasons, she was shortly thereafter involved in improper attempts to continue the business.

"She can and will explain in more detail at the time of her sentencing the facts which will show the impressive personal background of Ms Laitinen as well as the mitigating circumstances of her involvement here. She admits what she did was wrong and looks forward to her sentencing date."

Plea agreement documents say Yang met with Lopey again on June 5, 2017, and "explained his efforts to obtain a commercial cannabis production permit in Missouri in anticipation of a November 2017 vote to legalize marijuana in that state."

"Yang continued to pursue the sheriff's support, indicating that he was growing marijuana in California for distribution in Missouri," the plea agreement states. "Yang said the payments would increase once he received the profits from his Missouri cannabis production effort.

"During the June 5 meeting, Yang acknowledged that Siskiyou County had banned outdoor marijuana grows. He told the sheriff that he wanted protection from others who might report him to law enforcement."

Yang also offered to collect protection fees for Lopey from other marijuana growers, saying he would hand over $5,000 in cash for each growing site Lopey protected, court documents say.

"At the time, Yang discussed a need to protect 10 parcels, and he asked that the parcels not be the subject of any Siskiyou County marijuana enforcement operations," court documents say. 'Yang also said he would ensure the families responsible for each of the 10 parcels would later donate an additional $5,000 per parcel towards the sheriff's re-election campaign."

Four days later, Yang and Laitinen met with Lopey again, offering him $10,000 for each site the sheriff agreed not to take action against and again offering donations to his re-election campaign, court documents say.

"Nobody needs to know that we came here today, that we've talked to you," Laitinen told Lopey, according to court documents.

Weeks after that meeting, sheriff's deputies raided a grow site, seizing 50 pounds of processed marijuana and 100 plants, court records say, but Yang insisted this site was one of the ones he was paying to be protected from law enforcement and began calling Lopey. The sheriff returned his call and told him he wasn't aware that the site was one of the "protected" ones.

"Yang asked the sheriff to return the seized marijuana," plea agreement documents say. "The sheriff refused to do so."

Yang and Laitinen continued to talk to the sheriff, with Yang offering "bonus" payments and encouraging the sheriff to have his deputies visit another grower to convince that person to participate in the protection scheme, documents say.

"On August 31, 2017, law enforcement executed search warrants at the eight parcels that Yang and Laitinen paid the sheriff not to conduct marijuana enforcement operations on," court documents say. "At these eight parcels, investigators discovered approximately 1,279 marijuana plants."

The bribery case stems from longstanding disputes in Siskiyou County between law enforcement and Hmong farmers who say they are being discriminated against by county policies that unfairly restrict their ability to tend large marijuana grows.

One man was killed by law enforcement officers in June 2021 after he allegedly pointed a handgun at officers manning a roadblock near the Lava Fire in Siskiyou County, and a federal judge ordered a temporary halt last September to county officials' ban on water deliveries to Asian marijuana growers in the Mount Shasta Vista subdivision north of Weed.

The county argued in court documents filed Friday that the injunction should be lifted because officials have "streamlined" the permitting process for marijuana grows to affect all growers in the county equally.

"Therefore, there can be no argument reasonably made that the ordinances and permitting process single out anyone in the County of Siskiyou on the basis of his or her race, culture or religious standing," the county argued. "Previously, the court was presented with overwhelming evidence of a massive illegal cannabis cultivation enterprise occurring in parts of the county, including Mt. Shasta Vista with little or no onsite water resources; dependent on water trucks providing up to three million gallons per day to further a criminal enterprise."