PROVIDENCE – A top aide to House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi resigned Thursday amid claims he was linked to an illegal marijuana startup with mafia ties at the same time state lawmakers were making key decisions about Rhode Island’s new legal marijuana industry.
An R.I. State Police probe discovered John Conti, the House speaker’s senior deputy chief of staff, and Raymond “Scarface” Jenkins, a known associate of a New England crime family, were secret business associates in an illegal marijuana startup, called Organic Bees.
WPRI CBS TV-12 obtained thousands of pages of court documents, police reports, emails, photographs and text messages, along with surveillance video unveiling Conti’s alleged interactions with well-known area mob associates. Surveillance video from Dec. 2020 depicting the two men engaged in an animated conversation outside an entrance to the Statehouse that’s only open to lawmakers and senior state officials.
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Text messages revealed Conti provided insight to Jenkins and two other individuals into internal Statehouse deliberations over marijuana policies and leaked confidential information from the proposed state budget about expansion of the state’s medical marijuana business, WPRI CBS TV-12 reported.
State police documents say Conti attended several events with members of the New England Mafia, including one where so-called “loyalty payments” were paid up to mob leaders, according to the report.
A spokesperson for Shekarchi told WPRI on Oct. 26, the day before the report aired, that he was unaware of Conti’s involvement in Organic Bees and gave no indication it would affect Conti’s $136,000-a-year job on his staff.
According to the WPRI report, Conti denied any involvement in the Organic Bees startup and was not charged. Conti faced no direct penalties when the enterprise fell apart despite state police evidence that shows he played an integral role trying to get the startup off the ground. Regulators shut down Organic Bees earlier this year in part because it failed to disclose everyone involved in the company, including Conti and Jenkins.
“Mr. Conti had no role in the business organization, Organic Bees,” Conti’s attorney, Jimmy Burchfield Jr., said in a statement to WPRI. “Mr. Conti has been employed by the House of Representatives honorably, serving under four speakers since first hired in December 2006.”
Jenkins and two others were arrested and charged in connection with the business.
Following WPRI’s report, Common Cause Rhode Island on Friday urged Gov. Daniel J. McKee to reject the list of nominees Shekarchi submitted for the newly created three-person Cannabis Control Commission that will oversee the state’s marijuana industry. The group claims the appointment process is not constitutionally valid.
“We know that those setting the rules shouldn’t be the same ones in charge of ensuring those rules are followed. The revelations in the Channel 12 reporting about John Conti reveal why the legislature should not be involved in the day-to-day regulation of Rhode Island’s newly legalized recreational marijuana market,” said John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island.
