Legal troubles stymie dreams of pot ‘empire’
Lawsuit, busts and a Hells Angel connection beset entrepreneur
Franco Vigile wanted the world and then some.
But just as proposed legislation might open up the promised land of a recreational marijuana market, a legal spat, drug and gun charges against his family, and a connection to the Hells Angels all threaten to send Vigile’s dispensary dreams up in smoke.
Vigile, 29, once operated two pot dispensaries in the city, with a third location “coming soon.” But those two locations are now closed. A sign on the door Sunday at the Stittsville store reads: “To our valued customers. We are closed indefinitely. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
At the beginning of 2016, however, with one dispensary open, Vigile was looking to expand.
In his own words, revealed in text messages contained in a recent lawsuit, he planned for what would later be his Magna Terra Health Services chain to “become a reputable and recognized premium brand of retail cannabis throughout Ontario.” He boasted that a single dispensary had pulled in $115,000 in sales in just one month. The kind of money that would eventually bring both cops and robbers to his door.
Vigile met Alex Zaslavksy in November 2015. Together, they planned to reach “the top” of the dispensary business, retire from day-to-day operations and have a network of as many as 16 pot shops that would be overseen by regional managers.
The nature of that introduction isn’t specified in any documents filed by the men or their lawyers. What is clear, though, is that by May 2016 enough “bad blood” had pooled between the would-be pot kings that Zaslavsky slapped Vigile with a $170,000 lawsuit alleging everything from breach of trust to breach of fiduciary duty and wanted to punish Vigile for his “highhanded, reckless, arbitrary, callous and wanton” behaviour.
Zaslavsky’s lawyer, David Cutler, told the Citizen that both his client and Vigile “resolved the issues between them to their mutual satisfaction, as a settlement of the action and motion has been achieved.”
But Cutler said he was “not in a position to provide … any further information with respect to the resolution of this matter,” including what, if any, payout was involved.
The lawyer previously representing Vigile, Graeme Fraser, removed himself as Vigile’s counsel some time ago. There was no answer at either of Vigile’s dispensaries Sunday. The voice-mail inboxes at the two locations were full and were no longer accepting messages.
According to the statement of claim filed by Zaslavksy, however, the two men began discussing Zaslavksy’s investing in Vigile’s “medical marijuana” dispensary after they met in 2015. Within months the two had agreed that Zaslavsky would hand over $120,000, to be held in trust by Vigile until a new dispensary location was established, Zaslavsky alleged.
Vigile, in a statement of defence, said the money was never to be held in trust and, once invested, was his to do whatever he chose with for the sake of the business. That money would guarantee Zaslavsky a 15-per-cent stake in the ownership of the dispensary.
Vigile incorporated the business three days before Christmas 2015, according to Zaslavksy. At the time, Vigile was operating one shop on Carling Avenue as Ottawa Medical Dispensary, or OMD, but an unrelated business partnership disintegrated and the dispensary was rebranded Magna Terra.
But according to Zaslavsky, instead of using the money to operate a west-end location in the works, Vigile said in March 2016 that he had lost the bulk of his partner’s investment on the stock market. Big dreams gave way to poor decisions. Vigile had denied the allegations in a statement of defence filed in June 2016.
Text messages between the men show, even early on before the stock market gamble, that each was suspicious of the other as they discussed a legal agreement about their relationship, making business decisions together and planning a future built on running a cannabis empire.
“I’m the director of the business and I will run it and use the funds according to how I see fit,” Vigile texted in early February in response to Zaslavsky’s efforts to get his lawyers to ink a deal with the marijuana man. “I’m not going to have third parties regulate and control my business.”
Zaslavsky resolved to look into Vigile’s concerns with his own lawyer: “Don’t let it worry you.”
Despite some early misgivings, Zaslavsky confirmed his commitment to their hustle.
“Buddy one more thing I want to make clear,” Zaslavsky texted on Feb. 3, 2016, “I said that I am not a good 40 per week at the same desk guy. While that is true if we need to work 20 hours per day we do it. No questions asked. Didn’t want you to think that any hourly or any other kind of boundaries exist to how much effort and work will be put in. There will be no limits to my work ethic for our brand.”
Things between them improved, with Vigile even offering Zaslavsky the “friends and family” discount at his open dispensary and the two thinking up celebrity endorsements for the pot shop.
On Feb 11, 2016, Vigile sent Zaslavsky a link to a news story reporting that rapper Snoop Dogg had struck an exclusive deal with Tweed, which would sell the rapper’s brands in exchange for giving him cash and stocks.
“F—k they got to him first … You had the right idea!! … We should reach out to some famous people through my friend Chris from Hedley who’s an investor with us,” Vigile texted.
Zaslavsky is upset but has a plan: “F—k me … Just messaged Seth Rogen again … No chance I will get a response. But u don’t win the lotto if you don’t buy a ticket.”
Days later Vigile told Zaslavsky they were “on the cusp of something huge” with people “coming down off of those garbage opioids” and telling him that “marijuana is working them.”
Their bromance soured on Valentine’s Day. Zaslavsky wanted reassurance.
“From the beginning you sold me on the long term. The big picture. Owners of a chain of dispensaries together. To me that means my dream is being built too (residual income, dividends) meaning at one point in the future I can stop working and the money will still be coming,” Zaslavksy writes. “Franco I am very happy to help you build your dream as long as you are helping me build mine.”
Was there “space for two on this spaceship to the moon,” Zaslavsky pondered, “or just for one?” Vigile gave the man his word. “Put it this way, if I’m going to retire, you will retire with me … I give you my word that I will take you to the top with me.”
By the next day, they agreed they would be “unstoppable” and were “gonna take over.”
On March 9, 2016, Vigile begins trying to get Zaslavsky to meet him to make an admission that he doesn’t want to specify in text beyond a “chat with (Zaslavksy) about something.”
The men agreed “to go for a drive” that evening. Zaslavksy went to Vigile’s house for a drink beforehand. The texts stop.
In the light of the next day, Zaslavksy messaged to say he’s still “digesting” the news about the investment loss.
Vigile asked Zaslavsky to “decide shortly what you would like to do because I don’t need this extra stress in my life right now while I’m trying to build an empire for our futures.
“And as you know we have already had enough delays as it is finding a location. Like I said, if you’d like I will return your funds after seeking some of my own legal advice on how to document it properly etc. and we can both go our own ways respectfully.”
The next day Zaslavsky backed out of a meeting to discuss things when Vigile casually asks if it’s OK if his father attends, too.
Vigile eventually told Zaslavsky that $100,000 was invested in a “blue chip” stock originally valued at $140 whose price then plummeted to $40.
“It is a large sum of money that I cannot simply pull out of a hat and I am coming up with a plan to be able to return the funds,” Vigile texted. He says he’ll pay interest, too, when he repays the “loan.”
Bantering texts planning their talking points for meetings with several Liberal politicians and marvelling at Vigile’s trip to the mansion from the movie Scarface would eventually become tense communication as Zaslavsky begged for updates on Vigile’s plan to repay him.
In his statement of defence, Vigile explicitly outlined that while he and Zaslavsky did begin discussions to open the medical marijuana dispensary, any venture “was not to be in accord with all applicable federal, provincial and/or municipal laws and regulations existing at the time and Franco made this very clear to the plaintiff,” because the dispensaries
Police across the country, but not in Ottawa, are revealing that they have long believed Hells Angels have infiltrated the medical marijuana market.
are, in fact, illegal.
Medical patients can legally buy marijuana by mail from a producer licensed by Health Canada. But legal growers are only allowed to sell dried weed and cannabis oil through the mail. Vigile’s shops, like others, were selling other cannabis products, like edibles, and were doing so in a storefront location.
Vigile’s illegal dispensaries and their practices had invited the eyes of the law.
Last month, police charged Vigile, his sister Nina and brother Jordan after raids at both dispensary locations and their family home on Hyde Park Way, where the texts with Zaslavsky revealed Vigile has a “basement lair.”
During those raids, police found a .44-calibre Desert Eagle handgun and allege Nina possessed it without a licence and knew it was obtained by crime.
Drug officers seized the loaded gun, marijuana, hashish, hash oil, shatter, edibles, cash, documents, computers and cellphones from the three locations.
Franco and Jordan and the business itself were each charged with drug trafficking and possession of the proceeds of crime.
None of the charges has been tested in court.
Neither Franco nor Jordan has a criminal record. Nina was convicted in 2012 of resisting a peace officer, but it’s her connection to an outlaw motorcycle gang that brings further police suspicion on the dispensaries.
Nina’s boyfriend Josh Khosrowkhani is a member of the Keswick, Ont., chapter of the Hells Angels. Police across the country, but not in Ottawa, are finally revealing that they have long believed Hells Angels have infiltrated the medical marijuana market in the same way they have been involved in the illicit drug trade.
Ottawa police have not publicly linked the motorcycle gang either to Vigile’s business or any other dispensary operating in the capital.
While Vigile contends with criminal charges and continued police monitoring in what is still a lawless field, with legalization on the horizon, he has also faced the hurdles of traditional drug dealers: those wanting to rip him off.
In November 2016, three men robbed Vigile’s Stittsville dispensary on a Saturday evening, escaping with three large garbage bags of cannabis products and some cash.
Afterward, in an effort to protect to his product, court documents allege, Vigile had a panic button installed at the Carling dispensary. Magna Terra is also being sued in small claims court for allegedly failing to pay for that installation.
Nina Vigile is next scheduled to appear in court on April 26.