Federal authorities charged prominent Virginia Democrat Louise Lucas with racketeering and a money laundering conspiracy as part of a public corruption case involving a cannabis business she co-owns.
The state senator and frequent critic of President Donald Trump is one of the most powerful Democrats in the state. She surrendered to authorities Thursday, a Justice Department spokesperson said. She and six others, including relatives, are in custody.
Lucas, 82, also was charged with conspiracy to distribute marijuana.
She said in a statement on social media that she will not be intimidated or back down.
“Today, the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the full weight of the federal government have been wielded against an 82-year-old great-grandmother,” Lucas wrote. “I grew up under Jim Crow. I’ve seen what happens when people in power try to silence those who stand up to them. I spent my life fighting back and I’m not stopping now.”
Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel traveled to in Norfolk for a press conference announcing the charges.
Blanche said Lucas put her own financial interests above the people she was elected to serve.
“The Department of Justice intends to prove that Senator Lucas violated the trust of the people of Portsmouth and Chesapeake, Virginia, and of her state senate colleagues,” he said. “Her first duty should have been looking out for her constituents before herself.”
Blanche said the case is not politically motivated and invited Americans to read the indictment.
“We don’t do political paybacks,” he said.
The investigation into Lucas predates the Trump administration. But the Justice Department’s move, just 12 days before a midterm election, is unusual, as federal authorities have typically avoided taking overt investigative steps against political figures so close to an election. Lucas is not up for reelection this year, but has ties to prominent Democrats who are on the ballot.
NBC News has reached out to Senator Lucas’ office, her legal counsel, and Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger for comment.
In May, federal agents searched Lucas’ office in Portsmouth, along with a business she co-owns called The Cannabis Outlet, which is located on High Street. Virginia Democratic Rep. Suhas Subramanyam said his communications with Lucas were monitored, and said the Justice Department had become Trump’s “own personal law firm, with his former personal attorney carrying out vendettas on Trump’s political enemies.”
A reporter with WAVY, an NBC affiliate, also received a notification letter showing that his communications with Lucas’ number had been swept up in the wire.
The indictment alleges that members of the conspiracy “used various business entities” to “disguise the proceeds of illegal marijuana distribution,” and that Lucas “used her political position in the Virginia state senate to insulate” the enterprise “from criminal scrutiny, to further the goal of wealth accumulation.”
In one intercepted phone call in February 2026 with an unindicted co-conspirator, Lucas allegedly said that this was their “last chance at generational wealth,” adding “I’ve gotten too old to not be greedy.”
Democrats viewed the search in May against a backdrop of recent, politically charged inquiries during Trump’s tenure. Lucas, who has been a senator for 34 years, was a prominent voice in Virginia’s recent redistricting effort, a Democrat-led initiative to counter Republican redrawing pushed by Trump.
Lucas is arguably the most powerful statewide politician in Virginia, holding the purse as the chair of the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee.
She told NBC Washington in an interview in June that it was awfully coincidental that the search came on the heels of her push to redistrict Virginia in favor of Democrats.
“No arrests, no charges made, nothing,” she said.
In May, Lucas said in a statement: “Today’s actions by federal agents are about far more than one state senator; they are about power and who is allowed to use it on behalf of the people,” she said. “What we saw fits a clear pattern from this administration: when challenged, they try to intimidate and silence the voices of those who stand up to them.”
Besides the search at Lucas’ office, which houses her disabilities services business and is her political base in Portsmouth, agents in FBI T-shirts also went into the nearby cannabis store, which she opened in 2021. Several entrances to the Cannabis Outlet’s parking lot were blocked by unmarked vehicles with flashing blue lights, as was an entrance to the politician’s office.
By evening, agents were carrying boxes and bags out of the shop’s back door.
Lucas, a prominent backer of legalizing marijuana, has said the store sells legal hemp and CBD products. It has drawn scrutiny from local media amid allegations that some products were mislabeled.
Virginia has legalized pot possession, but retail sales of recreational marijuana remain illegal in the state.
Lucas has been a figure in Virginia politics since the 1980s, when she became the first Black woman elected to a city council seat in her native Portsmouth. She now is the first woman and first African American to serve as the Senate’s president pro tempore.
Earlier in life she was the Norfolk Naval Shipyard’s first female shipfitter, according to her biography in the state library. The job entails making, installing and repairing sometimes enormous metal assemblies for vessels.
In recent years she has been the CEO of a Portsmouth business that runs residences, day programs and transportation for intellectually disabled adults.
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