How Genius Fund’s Plans to Build the Largest Pot Farm in California ‘Exploded Like Fireworks’
Aug 05 2020
After California voted to legalize recreational cannabis in late 2016, companies rushed in to be the first big mover in the multi-billion-dollar market. L.A.-based Genius Fund, run by two inexperienced twenty-somethings from well-to-do families and backed by a billionaire Russian oligarch, had the means and positioning to feed growing demand across the state, but things played out differently.
In a rural town just across the California border from Reno, Nevada, in the northernmost portion of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, Genius Fund set up an outpost in early 2019 called Nature's Holiday. There, the company planned to grow 1,000 acres of hemp — which executives wanted to be the largest such farm in the state — for use in CBD products, according to former employees, corporate documents and the company's website.
<p>
The effort started off without a hitch. The company joined up with two local ranching families and leased a property formerly used by another cannabis company for operations. But months into 2019, the Plumas County Sheriff's Office started getting reports of men with rifles and handguns driving black SUVs, menacing people and running them off roads. Then-Sheriff Greg Hagwood later gave an account to the county's board of supervisors during a public hearing last year. He also shared details of the incidents in an interview with dot.LA.
</p><p>
The county's own agricultural commissioner, Tim Gibson, on his way to do an inspection, found himself waylaid and questioned by Genius' security, Hagwood said. Gibson declined to comment. Crew members for the Plumas County Road Maintenance Department doing work also reported a confrontation with Nature's Holiday's security team, who drove up and questioned what they were doing.</p><p>The incidents were just a few of the many problems that plagued Genius Fund, an ambitious cannabis startup with roughly $164 million in funds and a sprawling operation that spanned dozens of corporate entities, corporate documents in the U.S. and Canada show.</p>
<p>
He added that Plumas County officials decided to pay the Genius Fund's farming operation a visit. They were joined by sheriff's detectives and building, agricultural, planning and environmental health authorities, who went to tour the area.
</p><p>
"We discovered some really troubling set of circumstances," Hagwood told dot.LA.
</p><p>
Armed security out front falsely identified themselves as being affiliated with a Southern California law enforcement agency, Hagwood told the county's Board of Supervisors during a packed June 4, 2019 meeting.
</p><p>The sheriff said his deputies were told that the company had a research-related license to grow hemp as part of an agreement with Loyola Marymount University, and later, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
</p><p>
But, Hagwood told the County's Board of Supervisors, when they followed up with Loyola Marymount, the university said there was no such agreement. The dean of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln told county officials he was unfamiliar with the arrangement and had not authorized his signature to be put on the paperwork.
</p><p>
The universities did not respond to repeated emailed requests from dot.LA for comment.
</p><p>
As county officials toured the premises, Hagwood said, they saw work underway to install a septic system, underground wiring, and plumbing — all done without a permit. Raw sewage from trailers on the property was being dumped directly onto the ground.
</p><p>
"What it does is it demonstrates a flagrant disregard for accounting for rules or regulations or building codes," Hagwood told the board during the PowerPoint presentation. "Something this flagrant speaks to a frame of mind, and I find it very disturbing and I find it unacceptable."
</p><p>Nature's Holiday brought hundreds of seeds for hemp plants across the border from Oregon, which required inspection and release by the county agricultural commissioner, Hagwood said. He added that the commissioner was never contacted by the company and the plants never quarantined.
</p><p>
When county authorities touring the premises asked where the hemp plants were, employees told them the company had burned the young-growth plants because they were infested by mites, Hagwood said.
</p><p>Sheriff Hagwood was so disturbed by the incident that he put forward to the county's Board of Supervisors a motion for a moratorium on industrial hemp production.
</p><p>
"We're a large county in terms of geographical size, but we're a very small county in terms of resources, and I told the board, 'if you allow this to take root, we're going to be overrun'," Hagwood recalled. "We're already clearly seeing this measure of fraud, dishonesty and outrageous behavior of this group."
</p><p>An outside attorney hired by Genius Fund argued the two armed security staff members were protecting $1 million in seeds on the property and had a constitutional and a legal right under county law to be on private property.
</p><p>Genius Fund attorney Ben Kingston attended the hearing on behalf of Nature's Holiday and told county supervisors that the company had owned up to its mistakes and immediately changed the contract security guards they had been using to "put in our own people."
</p><p>
The moratorium motion failed, but within a couple months, Nature's Holiday would pack up and leave, having spent $7 million on the failed effort to grow hemp in Plumas County, two former employees said.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image image-crop-16x9">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUyOTQwNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY3MDY5MjY0MX0.5iNNwhioS2QDnBPjUNWbJJHATjnYhrD4hchL1o3pnLM/image.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=0%2C384%2C0%2C384&height=700" id="414b2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="58199835b869457e81581a11be99292b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1245" data-height="700" />
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">As Plumas County officials toured the premises, they saw work underway to install a septic system, underground wiring, and plumbing — all done without a permit.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Image from the Plumas County Sheriff's Dept.</small>
</p><h2>1,000 Football Fields of Hemp</h2><p>
After the debacle, Genius had more than a million sprouted marijuana plants and no place to put them.
</p><p>
In May 2019, company officials desperate for a grow location approached Stuart Woolf. The president and CEO of Woolf Farming & Processing said his land had never before grown hemp among its almond and tomato crops.
</p><p>
"They showed up and said, 'We've got to find some land; we've got a short timeline,'" Woolf said. "It just so happened that we had land that was already bedded up," usually used for tomatoes. Nature's Holiday leased 1,000 acres and planted immediately.
</p><p>
Genius Fund executives Ari Stiegler and Gabe Borden had also made "two young city kids" with zero agricultural experience the heads of Nature's Holiday, said three former employees.
</p><p>
The heads of Nature's Holiday "spent a shit ton of money (because) they were like, 'We just need to make harvest happen'," one former employee said.
</p><p>
That included buying a truck that ran on diesel. When employees filled it with gasoline, the truck stopped working and Genius had to rebuild the entire fuel system, according to a former employee who dealt with the matter.
</p><p>
Nature's Holiday would end up growing roughly 1,000 acres of hemp — about the size of 1,000 football fields including their end zones, Woolf said — on land belonging to the Woolf family in Huron, a small city in California's Central Valley.
</p><p>
At one point, Woolf said Genius Fund's leadership considered building an extractor near Huron. That would allow it to process the crop near the farm and avoid having to pay for all the freight costs and extra handling to ship it to their processing plant and lab, both in Southern California.
</p><p>
"These guys originally wanted to be first to market and wanted to do this in a big way," Woolf said, especially given their strong financial backing. "They did a very good job of farming this crop. I mean, you know, the whole thing turned out to be kind of a train wreck (but) they hired real agronomists, real farmers. They knew what they were doing."
</p><p>
Before the planting could begin, Woolf said he insisted that proper permits be in place. This time, a former employee said, the Nature's Holiday operation was backed by research-related licenses to grow hemp, as part of agreements with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Connecticut. Neither university responded to repeated efforts to confirm their involvement. Woolf said he never saw the paperwork.
</p><p>
In all, Nature's Holiday planted 1.5 million hemp plants. Genius Fund referred to the farm on its corporate documentation, <a href="https://fullcircleindustries.com/" target="_blank">including a company website</a>, as the "largest hemp farm in the state," former employees said.
</p><p>
The hemp plants, which at full growth look a little like Christmas trees, appeared to be consistent and healthy and at a full yield, Woolf said.
</p><p>
It was an impressive sight, and while Nature's Holiday leaders didn't know anything about growing cannabis, they worked long hours to make sure the crop came in.
</p><p>
Genius leadership bussed in potential buyers to view their hemp, hosting them at the Harris Ranch Inn & Restaurant.
</p><p>
As people disembarked, Woolf said one person exclaimed, "Holy shit!" "Oh my God, look at that." Another said, "I can't believe I'm looking at 1,000 acres of hemp."
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image image-crop-16x9">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUyOTQwNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMDY5MTQwNn0.0pg4PDdGB8qcyJ_eE1oU4OLJVSPvZKKgVSAu9g07l-E/image.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=0%2C60%2C0%2C60&height=700" id="e5c80" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="79bdb51e370b9a2466367f7e60dcb24d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1245" data-height="700" />
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">An image of Genius Fund subsidiary Nature's Holiday's marijuana grow in Plumas County</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Image from Plumas County Sheriff's Dept.</small>
</p><h2>The Green Bust</h2><p>
At the time, the financial return on hemp was high and people were anticipating FDA approval for its use in CBD products and all sorts of purposes. The so-called "green rush," as it was called, led the planting of many thousands of acres of hemp across California. All that yield at the end of summer 2019 drove down the price of hemp.
</p><p>
Genius Fund had forecast that the harvest would provide $28 million in revenue per month starting in October. But they didn't account for the costs, including replanting for the following season, according to former employees and corporate documents. </p><p>Then came a glut in the market.
</p><p>
The premium product they hoped to sell had been priced too high and they couldn't get anyone to buy.
</p><p>
"The market just totally crashed, and so all of the economics went from being too good to be true, to the worst you can imagine," Woolf said.
</p><p>
The plan had been to grow 5,000 acres in September, then another 2,500 acres to harvest in 2020. But the market dropped, Woolf and former Genius Fund employees said.
</p><p>
"They ended up with all this hemp they couldn't sell or give away," a former employee said.
</p><p>
Still, Genius Fund told its farmers, who were staying in hotel rooms for the 2019 harvest, that the operation was full-steam ahead, former employees said. Farmers were told to rent a house and move their families over on the company's dime, because it would be cheaper than paying for a hotel room.
</p><p>
The farmers had been pulled in from Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Nevada and given huge salaries. They were told "wild stories" and presented with big plans for a future farming hemp that never came through, former employees said.
</p><p>
"I thought it was going to be something that would be a lifelong project for me, to grow and farm, but we got moved up here for nothing," said one former Nature's Holiday employee. "It was almost too good to be true, in a sense. But it is what it is now."
</p><p>
Woolf said he also set aside land for the next year's grow and took "a bit of a hit" when the plan fell through.
</p><p>
"They did tell us the market had really collapsed… and so we could read the tea leaves," he said. "We were aware there were people in the area that just lost their shirt growing hemp, so it couldn't have been a good thing for them at the end of the day."
</p><p>
Employees spent much of the remainder of 2019 searching Plumas County for some equipment that had been stored by an employee who was no longer at the company. The disorganization was, in many ways, a metaphor of what was to come.
</p><p>
"They had a lot of people that didn't know what they were doing; they were probably going a little bit too big," said a person who sold equipment to the company. "They had all the equipment in the world, they could've done a lot of stuff with this."
</p><p>
Genius Fund eventually let go of about a half dozen workers at Nature's Holiday in early 2020, including the farmers they'd encouraged to move into houses.
</p><p>
The company placed the 1.7 million pounds of hemp flower and biomass in storage, multiple former employees said. It's currently listed as a frozen asset in the ongoing court proceedings that are part of former Genius Fund CEO Francis Racioppi's more than $3.5 million whistleblower retaliation lawsuit filed in April in Los Angeles federal court. None of the Nature's Holiday-grown hemp was ever used in Genius products, Stiegler said.
</p><p>
In his sworn declaration, Racioppi alleged that Genius Fund failed to pay the last two installments of $1.5 million owed to Woolf Farming as part of a settlement agreement for defaulting on its October 2019 lease agreement.
</p><p>
Woolf said the deal included growing at least 2,500 acres of hemp, but told dot.LA he was unable to provide details regarding the settlement agreement.
</p><p>
Woolf said Nature's Holiday "exploded like fireworks. Boom!" and disappeared nearly as quickly.
</p><p>--</p><p><em>This is the second in dot.LA's "Green Rush" series looking at the rise and fall of <em>cannabis-related startup</em> Genius Fund. Read <a href="https://dot.la/genius-fund-collapse-2646865907.html" target="_self">part one</a>, <em><a href="https://dot.la/cannabis-products-genius-fund-2646866366.html" target="_self">part three</a>, <a href="https://dot.la/green-rush-genius-fund-2646866354/particle-2" target="_blank">part four</a> and <a href="https://dot.la/dmitry-bosov-genius-fund-2646866356.html" target="_self">part five</a>, </em>and <a href="https://dot.la/st/newsletters" target="_self">sign up for dot.LA's newsletter</a> to be notified about new stories.</em></p><p><em>Do you have a story that needs to be told? My DMs are open on Twitter </em><a href="https://twitter.com/latams" target="_blank"><em>@latams</em></a><em>. You can also email me at </em><em>tami(at)dot.la</em><em>, or ask for my contact on Signal, for more secure and private communications.</em><br/></p><p><em>Lead art by Candice Navi</em></p>
'Green Rush' Editor's Note
<p><em>The story is pieced together from interviews with more than 40 former employees and business associates, active and retired county officials, as well as federal and county law enforcement; state court records, arbitration, arrest and corporate records in the U.S. and Canada; other public records in six California counties; Genius Fund corporate records and emails. Some former employees and business associates spoke to dot.LA on condition that their names not be mentioned out of fear of reprisals.</em></p><p><em></em><em><a href="https://dot.la/genius-fund-collapse-2646865907.html" target="_self">Part 1: Rise and Collapse of LA's Genius Fund</a> | <a href="https://dot.la/cannabis-products-genius-fund-2646866366.html" target="_self">Part 3: A Line of Failed Products</a> | <a href="https://dot.la/green-rush-genius-fund-2646866354.html" target="_self">Part 4: What Went Down in Adelanto</a> | <a href="https://dot.la/dmitry-bosov-genius-fund-2646866356.html" target="_self">Part 5: The Sudden Death of Dmitry Bosov And His Dream of a California Cannabis Empire</a></em></p><p>Nature's Holiday was supposed to supply industrial hemp for the company's research lab, manufacturing processes, CBD product lines and outside customers, according to former employees and a Genius Fund entity's <a href="https://fullcircleindustries.com/" target="_blank">website</a>.</p><p>The operation began attracting negative attention from county authorities not only because of the reported run-ins with Nature's Holiday's security toting high-powered weapons, but also because local officials fielded complaints of the company hauling in heavy equipment and shipping containers, and doing major grading and graveling — all without permits, Hagwood said.</p>
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUzMTM5Mi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyOTI4NDM1MX0.Jd9HRsKzDDgG-LhNz1JpTFk8fM_TjC4iGCYhqWCi_JA/img.jpg?width=980" id="40b81" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="261b4e062399d44e8b0c79f8f1e89877" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1600" data-height="1200" />
Images from Plumas County Sheriff's Dept.
County officials were met by armed security who falsely identified themselves as being affiliated with law enforcement. As they toured the premises, they saw work underway to install a septic system, underground wiring, and plumbing — all done without a permit.
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Green Rush: The Incredible Rise and Collapse of LA's Genius Fund, a $164M Cannabis Startup
Aug 04 2020
Their Russian investor was dead.
On a late Tuesday night in early May, the billionaire Russian coal tycoon, Dmitry "Dima" Bosov stopped answering phone calls and messages. When his wife, Katerina, arrived at their mansion in the suburbs of Moscow, she found her 52-year old husband locked in the family's home gym, dead from an apparent gunshot wound to the head.
<p>
The owner of multiple Russian coal companies had a penchant for ice hockey, snowboarding and placing big bets on businesses. More than 6,000 miles to the west, Bosov had been trying to build a new foothold in cannabis.
</p><p>
The Genius Fund was run by Ari Stiegler and Gabriel Borden, two twenty-something friends who had lofty ambitions of dominating the cannabis market first in the U.S. and then internationally, with a roughly $164 million bet from Bosov.
</p><p><span style="background-color: initial;">Their idea was to create a vertically integrated company that owns its own supply chain, producing, distributing and selling cannabis products more efficiently. It's a model that has proven particularly effective for other cannabis companies like MedMen, Caliva and Natura, which have raised millions in investor funding.</span><br/></p><p>
Genius Fund, however, blew the money in less than two years. Company executives ran up five-figure tabs, built lavish offices and manufacturing facilities, and hired armed security in their pursuit to build a cannabis empire, an investigation by dot.LA found. In the end, the Russian-funded venture crumbled.
</p>
Editor's Note
<p><em></em><em>The story is pieced together from interviews with more than 40 former employees and business associates, active and retired county officials, as well as federal and county law enforcement; state court records, arbitration, arrest and corporate records in the U.S. and Canada; other public records in six California counties; Genius Fund corporate records and emails. Some former employees and business associates spoke to dot.LA on condition that their names not be mentioned out of fear of reprisals.</em></p><p>This is first story in our "Green Rush" series. Read more:</p><p><a href="https://dot.la/genius-fund-cannabis-startup-2646866270" target="_self">Part 2: Growing Pains in Plumas County</a> | <a href="https://dot.la/cannabis-products-genius-fund-2646866366.html" target="_self">Part 3: A Line of Failed Products</a> | <a href="https://dot.la/green-rush-genius-fund-2646866354.html" target="_blank">Part 4: What Went Down in Adelanto</a> | <a href="https://dot.la/dmitry-bosov-genius-fund-2646866356.html" target="_self">Part 5: The Sudden Death of Dmitry Bosov And His Dream of a California Cannabis Empire</a></p><p>Stiegler and Borden publicly referred to Genius Fund as a private equity fund, but the company functioned more like a family office for their high wealth investor, or a conglomerate that rolled up into one parent entity. They headquartered Genius Fund originally in Venice, California, and later, Culver City.</p><p><span></span>Genius Fund's expansive structure included more than 50 corporate entities, mostly limited liability companies, spread across farming operations, CBD and THC manufacturing processes, product development, delivery operations and a retail front, according to domestic and international corporate filings. Each of Genius Fund's main operational entities had its own CEO or general manager.<br></p>
<p>
At its peak, the overall business employed more than 300 employees and contractors, corporate records showed.
</p><p>
Genius Fund was one of dozens of new marijuana-related startups that have sprouted up in recent years after California legalized recreational marijuana. Like others chasing the "green rush," Genius Fund wanted to position itself as an early giant in California's marijuana market, which is the world's largest legal pot market, <a href="https://bdsa.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/2019_BDS_California_CIB_Exec_Summ_Final_With_A.pdf" target="_blank">according to 2019 industry reports</a>. It's an industry that has generated nearly $3.1 billion in spending in the Golden State alone.
</p><p>
The company was beset with problems, according to former employees from all levels and areas of the organization who agreed to speak to dot.LA on condition that they not be named in the story out of fear of reprisals.
</p><p>
"Not one person at the top knew what they were doing," said a former employee — a sentiment that was echoed by many of their former colleagues and repeated by the company's now ex-CEO in his more than $3.5 million lawsuit against the company and its Russian oligarch owner filed in April in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles.
</p><h2><span></span>Kismet
</h2><p>
Ari Stiegler and Gabriel Borden first met while in college. They reconnected in early 2018 at a crypto-scene party that Borden threw in his family's Santa Monica, California, home. It was kismet in a way.
</p><p>
Business associates described Borden, now 26, as a shy, trusting and empathetic guy. The son of the executive producer and creator of Disney's "High School Musical," Borden had access to his father's Rolodex, according to his associates. Stiegler, now 28, was described by associates as brash and cocky, someone who knew how to talk a big game and sell investors on a vision, even if he may have known little about the industry.
</p><p>
Both were young serial entrepreneurs working out of the heart of Silicon Beach.
</p><p>
Early in their relationship, Stiegler arranged for Borden to be made an advisor for a cryptocurrency exchange company, then called Samsa Technologies Inc., which Stiegler co-founded in 2017 with another friend. Stiegler already had a history of jumping quickly from one business venture to another in search of hitting it big, according to former investors and business partners.
</p><p>
Stiegler spent office hours planning his own side businesses or watching YouTube videos, a former investor in one of Stiegler's earlier ventures, Rob Sciama, said.
</p><p>
Borden was good at nurturing relationships and bringing people to the table. He had always been attracted to business and not afraid of reaching out to industry leaders, including major business executives and VPs, while at Loyola Marymount University. While in school, he helped get InterWallet off the ground. That company would become Van Nuys-based Maya Labs, which provides a self-service kiosk payment solution for the unbanked and underbanked.
</p><p>
Several months after their first meeting, they met with a possible Russian investor, Dmitry Borisovich Bosov, a contact of one of Borden's classmates at Loyola Marymount, to talk about a possible investment opportunity.
</p><p>
Stiegler said in an interview that Bosov wanted "good entrepreneurs in L.A. to run a cannabis company" for him.
</p><p>
"He really liked us and basically said, 'Hey, you guys need to quit your companies and come work for me,'" Stiegler told dot.LA. "It's not every day that someone offers to invest millions of dollars into a company. So we were like, 'OK, yeah, sure we can do this right now'."
</p><p>
Stiegler's colleague, Borden, did not reply to multiple requests for comment.
</p><p>
The new opportunity came with the promise of $160 million investment for the cannabis business even though neither he nor Borden had any experience in the industry, according to two people with knowledge of the meeting.
</p><p>
With the promise of millions and a hefty chunk to start, the company called Genius Fund was underway.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUzMTMxMC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0Mjc1MTg2MH0.vH_CP-saH9uo90FDPify-kfDvIzPBeMzp_YIOBocEMQ/img.png?width=980" id="f8274" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c9e9a5f050624ec03e76a4cc1b7f6333" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="2522" data-height="1376" />
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">A screenshot of Genius Fund's website from August 2018 shows the company's leadership team. Top left to bottom right: Ari Stiegler, Gabriel Borden, Danny Abyzov, Andrew Dillard, Andrey Pirumov, Daniel Sarpa and Chris Clifford.</small>
</p><h2>A Ticket to 'Generational Wealth'</h2><p>
The early days of the company were an exciting time. Stiegler served as the company's CEO and CFO, while Borden served as secretary, according to state corporate records. But they referred to themselves as managing partners, according to multiple employees and the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180821132251/https://www.geniusfund.com/" target="_blank">company's website</a>. Two Russian executives were also referred to as managing partners at Genius Fund. One was Bosov's friend, Andrey Pirumov, who headed up marketing, and the other was Borden's college classmate, Danny Abyzov, who knew Bosov through his father, Mikhail Abyzov, another Russian oligarch.
</p><p>
Abyzov, the father, once served as a minister in former Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's cabinet and was arrested in March 2019 for allegedly embezzling $62 million and depositing the money in foreign banks, per <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/russian-ex-minister-arrested-on-fraud-charges" target="_blank">Fox Business News</a> and other media <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/former-russian-minister-abyzov-pleads-not-guilty-ready-to-cooperate/29845781.html" target="_blank">reports</a>. Abyzov <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/former-russian-minister-abyzov-pleads-not-guilty-ready-to-cooperate/29845781.html" target="_blank">pleaded not guilty</a> and <a href="https://ria.ru/20200714/1574333108.html" target="_blank">Russian state media reports</a> that he remains jailed. His attorney did not reply to an emailed request for comment. Abyzov's duties as a cabinet minister had been to make Russian government transparent and accountable, according to <a href="http://government.ru/en/persons/201/" target="_blank">Russian government records</a>.
</p><p>
The son's executive role at Genius Fund ended after his father's arrest, several former employees said.
</p><p>
Friends and business associates said they heard Stiegler say that Genius Fund was his ticket to "generational wealth." He and Borden focused on lining up new hires and possible partners to start work.
</p><p>
Stiegler hired his roommates and frat brothers from the University of Southern California, some of whom he plucked out of jobs as a manager at a pizza joint, a worker in a mailroom, a busboy and bartender, to become analysts or work specialized roles like growing 1,000 acres of hemp, at Genius Fund's various entities, according to their LinkedIn profiles and interviews with former employees. Many made more money than they had ever made in their lives, former employees said in interviews.
</p><p>
From leased cultivation fields to manufacturing facilities for CBD and THC, product lines, even a brand incubator and a retail store, by the fall of 2019, the multi-faceted company operations were mostly up and running.
</p><p>
It was a time of fast growth, with millions in investor funds — as much as $18 to $20 million — wired every few weeks from Bosov's company in Russia, corporate records reviewed by dot.LA show. Russian investors <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/23/us/kukushkin-giuliani-russia-cannabis-marijuana.html" target="_blank">have flocked</a> to the cannabis industry in the U.S. as traditional banks have shied away from it, even though the plant is illegal in their homeland.
</p><p>
Many employees left jobs at well-known brands, including places like MedMen, to work for Genius Fund.
</p><p>
"Everything was optimistic, in a 'things are about to take off' sort of way," said a former employee.
</p><p>
The company's early hires worked out of two live-work apartments in Venice, right by the beach. When Bosov and his wife visited around last spring, one of the apartments — a one-bedroom, one-bath — was so clogged with office furniture and desks it was difficult to move around. Neighbors complained about dozens of people going in and out all day, according to a person with direct knowledge.
</p><p>
Genius Fund's executives had high ambitions and needed bigger digs. Its roughly 35 staffers moved into a new 12,895 square foot, three-story office building with skylights, thermal ash hardwood flooring and floor-to-ceiling windows in Culver City in the spring. The parking lot featured a Tesla supercharging station.
</p><p>
Genius Fund paid $2 million in cash upfront to lease the property, along with two months of rent, at roughly $65,000 per month, according to corporate records and two former employees with direct knowledge of the lease terms.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUyOTM3Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNDE1MzYzOH0.Z_TzFHNhKcytBLo8H2388-GoAMlXidsR2RsZiEscF2A/img.jpg?width=980" id="3400a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e00908e95e3abd8bf2ab1b099d0ac47b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1951" data-height="1463" />
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">The Genius Store at 7569 Melrose was the only store the company opened.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Photo by Tami Abdollah</small>
</p><h2>The High Life</h2><p>
In the early days, Stiegler and Borden traveled every few weeks to places such as Forte dei Marmi, Italy to meet with their Russian investor and to party on yachts. Stiegler also traveled at Bosov's request to Russia and Cabo San Lucas in Mexico, where Bosov frequently stayed.
</p><p>
The two created a high-life culture, regularly flying in private jets, former employees said. To wow an investor, company executives rented a catamaran. Stiegler enjoyed meals out at expensive restaurants, according to two business associates, and donned a pricey Rolex he said Bosov gave him for his birthday.
</p><p>
Genius Fund executives bought both business and non-business items with company funds, including luxury vehicles such as Escalades and Teslas, "daily lunches that would regularly cost in excess of $1,500" and same-day business class one-way tickets "without any business need for such wasteful spending," according to allegations in Genius Fund's ex-CEO Francis Racioppi's whistleblower retaliation lawsuit against the company and Bosov.
</p><p>
Stiegler said the $1,500 was for a meal service for employees at the company. He added that he, Borden and Pirumov all had an ownership interest in the company, but Bosov was the majority owner and signed off on all investments and hiring decisions.
</p><p>
"He's the boss, but, like, we're here to, you know, execute his objectives on the ground," Stiegler said. "I was kind of just a fancy employee really."
</p><p>
When someone needed to be picked up at the airport, company officials realized they didn't have a "Genius Mobile." So the company purchased a new black Mercedes Sprinter with customizations that included fancy upholstery with Genius Fund's logo and a flat-screen TV, former employees said.
</p><p>
Genius Fund leadership spent money "recklessly," with one company executive insisting on purchasing desks, computers and monitors for more than 50 potential employees who the company had no immediate plans to hire, according to allegations in the ex-CEO's court documents.
</p><p>
"Bosov was giving a lot of money with very little questions," former executive Evan Kagan said.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image image-crop-16x9">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUyOTYxOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNjkwNTk1OX0.hH1k49JJloH39UnBo485E8zAJKI3ut2dgcAR4p_4jQk/image.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=0%2C225%2C0%2C225&height=700" id="c0c69" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b8f1ebd69bad5157b9a0474a53e03314" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1245" data-height="700" />
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">The interior of Genuis Fund's Mercedes Sprinter van with custom upholstery.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Photo provided by a source who prefers to remain anonymous.</small>
</p><p>
Employees charged personal expenses like spa visits to their company cards, according to former employees with direct knowledge. Another Genius Fund employee used the company-issued credit card to donate $2,800 to the Trump Victory PAC in Massachusetts, according to <a href="https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?committee_id=C00618389&contributor_name=matt+cook&two_year_transaction_period=2020&min_date=07%2F01%2F2019&max_date=08%2F31%2F2019" target="_blank">Federal Election Commission data</a>. Corporate records show a matching charge on a Genius Fund Amex card.
</p><p>
Meanwhile, personal items like surfboards, dozens of voice recorders and a Gita robot, were purchased by Genius Fund for Bosov and shipped or couriered to him in Russia or Italy, the ex-CEO's lawsuit alleges.
</p><p>
"Yes, we bought a Tesla, but it was Dima's personal Tesla and he repaid us for it," Stiegler said. "Yes, we bought him a surfboard for his birthday. But, whatever. It's like a $800 surfboard and he invested a ton of money in the company."
</p><p>
In addition to the Tesla, former employees said, Bosov utilized the company's staff for upkeep and maintenance of the couple's Beverly Hills residence, the lawsuit states. His wife used her Genius Fund American Express card on high-fashion shopping trips at Chanel in Monaco and Luisa Via Roma in Florence, Italy, according to company records.
</p><p>
"Were funds that were sent into the company bank account used for personal things that Dima and his family needed in L.A.? Yes," Stiegler said. "If they needed a car to drive around, we bought him a car. When they went to dinner, they used the company credit card but then they would reimburse the company," he added. "They didn't have anyone to be their helpers in L.A. We were their helpers."
</p><p>Inside the company, a toxic culture was forming, according to former employees who were there.<br/></p><p>
Genius Fund hired models and nightclub dancers to dress in skimpy clothing for its exhibits at trade shows, former employees said.</p><p><span></span>Multiple former business colleagues told dot.LA they heard Stiegler make sexist, demeaning comments about women, for example, stating women aren't as skilled at business as men are. Former employees said they saw Stiegler look women up and down, use them as props to ease business relationships, and make comments about what women wore and their appearance. Former employees also remember hearing that a female executive assistant was upset after Stiegler noted a scheduled hookup with a "hot Swedish" chick on his work calendar. A friend of Stiegler's remembers him bragging and laughing as he recounted the same story.
</p><p>
Stiegler denied those characterizations.
</p><p>
"Absolutely not," he said. "I come from a nice Jewish family, you don't do that, you don't treat employees like that or say rude things."
</p><p>
Former business associates described Stiegler as someone who didn't care what anyone thought, so long as his actions could be justified legally.
</p><p>
By the end of 2019, Genius Fund planned for the cannabis empire to be up and running and already in the black.
</p><p>
The company grew a complicated infrastructure, with roughly 20 active entities, each with its own books, and multiple bank accounts that former employees said never appeared to be used for operations. dot.LA found in public records more than 50 business entities, including one in Canada, that Genius Fund registered or acquired during its less than two years in operation.
</p><p>
Amit Sharma, CEO of FinClusive and former U.S. Treasury official who dealt with money laundering said that generally — not about Genius Fund — having upward of 50 plus different entities seems excessive for a new startup. But, he added, some companies do create sub-entities for potential future spinoffs, mergers or acquisitions of other businesses, and to protect intellectual property or avoid taxation.
</p><p>
Cannabis-related businesses already operate in a strange gray area between federal laws that make marijuana illegal and states that have decriminalized its use, Sharma said. That forces some companies to rely on business practices that may appear shady, but are in fact workarounds. They may have no other choice, he said.
</p><p>Genius Fund's former CEO Racioppi characterizes the company's story as a "sordid tale of corporate mismanagement, subterfuge, and fraud involving an amalgam of shell companies that self-identify as part of the 'Genius Fund Group,'" in his whistleblower retaliation lawsuit.<br/></p><p>
Attorneys representing the defendants responded in the case that Racioppi was never terminated and characterized him as a disgruntled CEO who was unwilling to take direction from the new owner. They argue the case should be in arbitration, not in court.
</p><p>
"An employee's frustration that he was not given greater freedom to operate a company as he wished does not constitute breach of an employment contract," the response said, noting that Racioppi had never sent over a resignation notice.
</p><p>
Many former Genius Fund employees said they still don't know what to think of their time with the company. Rumors about the real intentions of Bosov's financial dealings were common, some former employees told dot.LA.
</p><p>
"A lot of us were not sure," a former employee said. "It looks funny, shady, but maybe nothing illegal is actually happening, and maybe, maybe it's just stupidity as well. We were all like, 'Maybe, maybe'."</p><p><em></em>__</p><p><em><em><em>This is the first in dot.LA's "Green Rush" series looking at the rise and fall of <em>cannabis-related startup</em> Genius Fund. Read <a href="https://dot.la/genius-fund-cannabis-startup-2646866270/" target="_self">part two</a>, <em><a href="https://dot.la/cannabis-products-genius-fund-2646866366.html" target="_self">part thre</a>e, <a href="https://dot.la/green-rush-genius-fund-2646866354.html" target="_blank">part four</a> and <a href="https://dot.la/dmitry-bosov-genius-fund-2646866356.html" target="_blank">part five</a> </em>and <a href="https://dot.la/st/newsletters" target="_self">sign up for dot.LA's newsletter</a> to be notified about new stories.</em></em></em></p><p><em>Do you have a story that needs to be told? My DMs are open on Twitter </em><a href="https://twitter.com/latams" target="_blank"><em>@latams</em></a><em>. You can also email me at </em><em>tami(at)dot.la</em><em>, or ask for my contact on Signal, for more secure and private communications.</em></p><p><em>Lead art by Candice Navi</em></p>From Your Site Articles
- Genius Fund's Plans to Build the Biggest Pot Farm in CA' - dot.LA ›
- Is the Green Rush Over? - dot.LA ›
- Green Rush: What Went Down in Adelanto - dot.LA ›
- The Death of Dmitry Bosov and His Dream of a Cannabis Empire - dot.LA ›
- LA Metal Icon Expands His Cannabis and Design Brand into Nevada, Arizona - dot.LA ›
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