A powerful former Republican politician and medical marijuana regulator in Michigan was sentenced to nearly five years in federal prison for accepting bribes of more than $110,000 while leading the state’s MMJ licensing board.
Rick Johnson, the state’s House speaker from 2001 to 2004, pleaded guilty in federal court in April to accepting bribes while heading the state’s Medical Marijuana Licensing Board from 2017 to 2019.
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“I am a corrupt politician,” Johnson told the judge Thursday during his sentencing, the Associated Press reported, citing The Detroit News.
Johnson was also “fined $50,000 for soliciting and accepting bribes” as a former chair of the state’s MMJ regulatory agency and ordered to forfeit an additional $110,200, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney’s office in the Western District of Michigan.
He accepted a minimum of $110,200 in bribes, including cash payments, flights to Canada on private
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