According to her most recent financial disclosure form, Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried has a financial interest in Harvest Health & Recreation Inc., a company acquired by Trulieve Cannabis Corp. for $2.1 billion last week. Trulieve is one of the most notable cannabis companies in the United States and is the largest licensed cannabis company in Florida.
According to 2019 documents, Fried’s assets in Harvest Health totaled over $190,000, and her personal overall net worth increased by 416% during the time frame of June 2018 to June 2019. During that period, she was also gifted a $700,000 home with her fiancé Jake Bergmann, who has financial stake in another marijuana company, Surterra Wellness.
Fried has repeatedly promoted the cannabis industry as the Agriculture Commissioner while she and her family have maintained financial interests in cannabis companies.
In June 2019, Kim Rivers, the CEO of Trulieve was appointed to the newly-established Medical Marijuana Advisory Committee for the State of Florida which was created under the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services after Nikki Fried was elected.
During the same month as her home acquisition, Fried hired Holly Bell, Director of Cannabis, where Bell would “oversee the development of rules, work directly with scientific experts, and ensure Commissioner Fried’s vision for cannabis in Florida continues moving forward.”
Prior to her holding statewide office, Fried was a registered medical cannabis lobbyist and her largest client, a company called San Felasco Nurseries, was one of the only licensed marijuana growers in Florida. Weeks after her election as agriculture commissioner, San Felasco was bought out by Harvest Health for over $60 million.
No financial disclosures indicate if Fried benefited financially from the San Felasco buyout, or the Harvest Health buyout, but critics have questioned, since her election, if she has financially benefited from her post as commissioner.
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Grant Holcomb is a reporter at the Florida Capital Star and the Star News Network. Follow Grant on Twitter and direct message tips.
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Nikki is a hottie
Gas Pump Queen!
I like how her boyfriend is married – not to her – some other woman. The Country and State are losing their moral compass.
@Mickey: It is not illegal for a person to have a financial interest in a business and profit. However, it is illegal for them to use their office for such a purpose.
Why is this a story? Is it illegal for a person to have financial interest in a business and profit? Is if illegam to have property gifted to you? What’s the point of this story?
I support Nikki Fried 100%. She did not hide or lie about her finances. This is, as the late, great in his own mind only former prez and his sycophants, a smear campaign against a Democrat running for office in Florida.
Just more evidence of our one-party media that ignores this story completely , Tallahassee reports is our only hope!
Ms. Weed wont be able to compete with the Crist/Gillum ambiguous sexuality party that also likes to smoke weed.
How well does Nikki know J.T Burnette?
I guess Jeffrey Schweers over at the Tallahassee Democrat missed this. I guess he’s too busy stirring the “pot” trying to trump up something on DeSantis. I think they call this Gabordism when you ignore deep corruption in one party and makeup stuff for the other party.
WOW……You don’t even need a Road Map to follow the Corruption with this woman. And to think, some people want her to be our Governor.
The more you peel the onion, the smellier it gets. When will we see the launching of a legitimate investigation of Nikki Weed and her multiple Conflicts of Interest and likely Public Corruption? I suspect this is why Chuck Crist has jumped into the mix… they know Nikki Weed is going down. But I doubt she’s too concerned… she’s made a bundle off the dead brain cells of children.
Nikki Weed living up to her true name time and time again. Utterly despicable. Thank you TR for being one of the lone Florida media outlets showing her corruption.