Marijuana Dispensaries

 Operating a marijuana dispensary is all the rage these days.  However, a marijuana dispensary is not running a normal retail outlet.  First of all, getting the product involves a difficult legal problem.  Once you have a source of marijuana, you have to get it to the store.  It is illegal to transport marijuana in California, especially significant quantities which are necessary to maintain reasonable inventory.  So if you order some pot and the person bring it to the store gets stopped, searched, and arrested, he cannot claim the defense that he was delivering the marijuana to a dispensary.  So unless you are growing pot in the back room of the shop [not a bad idea, incidentally], getting inventory is not so simple as calling fedex.

The next problem, which was featured in the Los Angeles Times recently, is what to do with the cash generated from the pot sales.  Banks are very reluctant to accept cash deposits from marijuana dispensaries, since they are concerned about money laundering statutes and other potential criminal liability.  Obviously the owner of the shop could employ an intermediary to make deposits under the name of a legal business, but the intermediary would also run the risk of money laundering charges.  Presumably a small operation would not be very vulnerable to prosecution, but if your business is successful the feds might take a look at your operation and potentially seek prosecution for money laundering.  So the more money you make the more exposure you would have...not a very nice way to do business.  But the rewards from operating a marijuana dispensary are quite significant these days, so the problems involved might very well be worth it. 

Mortgage Fraud

As a result of the recession of 2008, there has been a tremendous upswing in prosecutions ofr mortgage fraud.  Millions of homeowners found their equity in their home reduced to a substantial negative amount, causing the banking industry to initiate millions of foreclosures.  A cottage industry sprang up where lawyers, accountants, and numerous unscrupulous entrepeneurs offered their services to assist the homeowners avoid foreclosure.  Some of the mortgage "experts" were legitimate, but many others were scamming the desperate homeowners.  Often these "experts" would use fraudulent documents to convince the homeowners to pay substantial fees to help avoid foreclosure, or in many cases they would induce the homeowners to sign grant deeds which they would then record, make a settlement with the financial institution, and then take ownership of the property.   Other scams were also utilized, limited only by the creative criminal minds of the "experts".

sometimes innocent people would also attempt to ameliorate the drastic legal consequences of foreclosure, but make some negligent mistake in preparing the complex documents involved in these procedures.  Mortgage fraud prosecutions are very sexy for prosecuting agencies, and it is not uncommon for such innocent people to end up victims of the criminal justice system.  Any individual who suffers such injustice should definitely hire an experienced lawyer to fight a mortgage fraud prosecution.