Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
From life in prison to helping others on TV
Her manicured nails, blond hair and big hoop earrings that dust her shoulders have her ready for her close-up, yet this TV show scene has Alexandria “Allie” Severino helping her friend with some of the dirtiest work there is.
“Uh, is that a cockroach?” she asks, helping the friend clean out the trunk of a car, in preparation for a trip to drug rehab.
In her 28 years, Severino of Delray Beach has seen — and lived — just about every part of what has caused South Florida’s drug deaths to skyrocket and sober homes to proliferate.
At 17, she had faced 120 years in prison for drug dealing, but a lucky break got her sentence reduced to six years of probation.
She has been homeless and used drugs. And for most of the past 10 years, she has earned her living in one way or another in the region’s exploding drug rehabilitation industry.
Now, Severino is the co-star of “Dopesick Nation,” a new TV show on Viceland, a cable channel that debuted in 2016 under the creative direction of Spike Jonze, the filmmaker.
The show, which airs at 10 p.m. Wednesdays, takes Severino and a co-star behind shopping centers, in parks and along train tracks. They try to help recovering addicts
ers marijuana illegal, and, with their deposits guaranteed by the feds, banks cannot accept profits from the sale of illegal drugs. But it’s previously been unheard of for banks to close the campaign accounts of politicians that take money from the industry.
In the worst case, campaigns could be forced to refund money they got from the medical marijuana industry.
Among those who could be affected: Republican governor candidate Ron DeSantis, Republican agriculture commissioner candidate Matt Caldwell, incumbent Republican chief financial officer Jimmy Patronis, Republican attorney general candidate Ashley Moody and Democratic attorney general candidate Sean Shaw.
The largest share of the campaigns that accept marijuana money banked at SunTrust, with 27 accounts there. A SunTrust representative said that whether to close an account is something the bank would decide “on a case-by-case basis.”
“We adhere to all state and federal laws relating to the services we offer to clients,” said SunTrust spokesman Mike McCoy. “We don’t comment on individual client relationships.”
Dealing with marijuana money on a case-by-case basis rather than having a hard-and-fast rule appears to be the norm among banks contacted by the Sun Sentinel.
“No one will tell you how to do it or how not to do it because it’s against federal law. … It’s going to be up to each bank’s risk appetite,” said Anthony DiMarco, vice president of government affairs for the Florida Bankers Association. “What extent is the ripple far enough away from the stone going in the pond that it’s not considered a marijuana transaction? I’m not aware of that, and no association I know is aware of that either.”
For Wells Fargo and BB&T, those ripples extend into medical marijuana businesses donating to political campaigns. The big questions are whether those banks will apply this rule across the board and whether other banks will follow suit.
“As a U.S. bank that is federally regulated, we have to comply with federal law,” said Wells Fargo spokeswoman Michelle Palomino. “In instances where state laws may differ, it is Wells Fargo’s policy not to knowingly bank or provide services to marijuana businesses or activities clearly related to those businesses.”
Palomino said the bank takes action “if we become aware of marijuana money going into any account.”
Under Florida law, legislative campaigns can receive a maximum of only $1,000 per election from an individual or corporation, $3,000 for the statewide offices of governor, agriculture commissioner, attorney general and chief financial officer. But candidates can create committees that can accept unlimited donations, and most do so.
Fried has been one of the top beneficiaries of such money. Her campaign has received at least $9,000 from the industry, while her committee, Florida Consumers First, has received at least $42,000.
But Fried is not the only candidate with both a Wells Fargo account and marijuana money in the bank. Republican state Reps. Byron Donalds and Bob Rommel, both of Naples, and Rene Plasencia, of Orlando, all have campaign accounts with Wells Fargo and have received at least $1,000 from players in the industry.
“[Fried] may have been flagged given the amount of donations and the fact that it was a statewide candidate,” said Brett Doster, a political consultant for Rommel, whose campaign took $1,000 from George Hackney, one of the few nurseries in Florida with a license to grow marijuana. “To my knowledge, unless there was a form letter that we missed, the campaign has not been contacted in any way, shape or form by Wells Fargo.”
Donalds and Plasencia did not return calls for comment. None of the banks would comment on individual account holders.
Although banks generally don’t do business with the legal marijuana industry because of the severe penalties involved in allowing deposit of drug money, it’s unusual for a bank to target a political campaign under the rules.
Ben Pollara, the campaign manager for Fried who previously ran the campaign to get medical marijuana in the Florida Constitution, was unaware of any other candidate in the country whose campaign account had been closed due to political donations from the medical marijuana industry.
“All these banks are skittish on marijuana banking,” DiMarco said. “Your potential regulatory liability is so high, even if you follow everything, you’re not out of the woods.”
Like Wells Fargo, BB&T also closed Fried’s account. Of the 84 campaigns and committees the Sun Sentinel found had taken medical marijuana money this election cycle, only one other — that of state House candidate Ana Maria Rodriguez in Miami — banked with BB&T.
“While BB&T has no position on the issue of marijuana or the ongoing discussion regarding its legalization, we must continue to abide by all applicable laws and regulations as a federally regulated financial institution,” said BB&T spokesman Brian Davis. “While many states have enacted changes, federal law prohibits the use, sale and possession of all forms of cannabis in the United States.”
Fried believes she has a solution for Florida: create a bank owned and operated by the state government.
“It wouldn’t be doing investments or loans,” she said. “It’s really just a depository where marijuana companies can house their capital, money that’s going to investors, out to employees. It would also be an opportunity for doctors to have accounts and patients to have accounts as well.”
Rather than deposits being guaranteed by the federal government, money would be insured by Florida’s state government. Similar legislation is being debated in California. North Dakota is the only state that currently has a state bank whose deposits are guaranteed by state taxpayers, not the federal government. But that bank was largely designed for handling the deposits of state government and state agencies, not for marijuana.
Because banks are skittish of marijuana money, dispensaries are largely cash-only businesses. The state bank Fried envisions would be able to issue patients debit cards to be used at dispensaries.
“It’s very dangerous for a patient to walk into a dispensary and people around you know there’s only one thing you’re doing in there, buying products. So they know you have cash,” she said. “It’s a dangerous situation for the patient and a dangerous situation for the providers.”
Fried’s idea, though, is predicated on her winning in November and persuading the state Legislature to go along. She faces state Rep. Matt Caldwell, RNorth Fort Myers, a state legislator with major backing from business, the agricultural industry and the deep pockets of his fellow lawmakers’ political committees.
Caldwell, like Fried, has called for moving the state’s Office of Medical Marijuana Use from the Department of Health to the Department of Agriculture.
Fried’s ideas also depend on nothing getting done at the federal level.
“First and foremost, [Congress] needs to pass that a state that has a recreational or medical program is exempt from that part of the Controlled Substances Act,” she said. “But knowing how fast D.C. works, we obviously have to own this situation here in Florida.”