[Cannabis, Diaz.

Angeles owed $4.8 million, a debt that accrues $19,826 in interest a month.

The state decided that Mejia should foot the bill.

Karen Yiu, a deputy attorney general who wrote the petition to seize Mejia’s assets, declined to comment.

In a brief phone interview, Mejia confirmed she owes the state more than $5 million, “a huge number.” She said she wasn’t comfortable discussing the matter without first speaking to her attorney, Lee Petros. Contacted again, Mejia hung up.

Petros, who did not return messages seeking comment, sued Mejia in 2019 to remove her from a Florence-Firestone building owned by Huang, eviction records show.

Huang’s spokesman said he bought the property on 83rd Street in July 2017 for “investment purposes.” The sheriff’s department twice raided a dispensary there, seizing cannabis and thousands in cash, according to a county abatement complaint.

After Petros evicted Mejia, Huang’s company settled the abatement case by paying a $50,000 fine and promising not to lease to a cannabis business.

Huang sold the building in 2021 to a company called JXTZ Investment Group. Records show the company also acquired two other properties Huang previously owned.

Huang ’s spokesman denied any connection to the buyer.

Despite the raids, eviction and sale by Huang’s company, the cannabis sales continued on 83rd Street. Deputies executed two search warrants in 2022, seizing cannabis, money and a polymer ghost gun, according to White, the sheriff ’s lieutenant.

In July, JXTZ Investment Group sold the property to a MidCity company that has evicted the same tenant from its buildings in Compton and North Hollywood for using them as illegal dispensaries.

The Times could not find a link between Huang and the Mid-City company — and Sitrick denied any existed.

But a familiar tenant was named in those evictions: Amy Sahadi

Between July 2019 and April 2020, the LAPD raided a dispensary called the Green Garden Collective four times.

Huang had bought the building, a former hair salon in the Westmont neighborhood, 25 days before the first raid, according to property and court records. His spokesman said he sold it three months later after learning it was being used as an illegal dispensary, “contrary to what was stated in the lease.”

Sitrick said there is “no relationship” between Huang and the buyer, Philip Oh. Property records do show that Oh also acquired the Azusa’s Finest property from Huang’s company. Oh’s lawyer declined to comment.

After the Los Angeles city attorney’s office charged Huang and Oh with violating the city’s prohibition on unlicensed cannabis sales, Peirano — the lawyer who represented Diaz — helped negotiate a deal for Huang, Sitrick said.

In exchange for a no contest plea to a misdemeanor electrical code violation and a year’s probation, prosecutors dismissed the other charges against Huang. Oh was sentenced to a year of probation and fined $4,100.

Officials from the state Department of Cannabis Control and Los Angeles city attorney’s office didn’t answer questions about whether the criminal case or abatement efforts affected Huang’s licenses. The state cannabis agency’s spokesman provided a link to public disciplinary actions, which showed none have been taken against Huang.

The case does not appear to have affected Huang’s standing within Stiiizy or its parent company. His spokesman said the company’s “senior leadership” knew of the criminal case and abatement actions.

Before publication, a lawyer representing Huang and Stiiizy sent a cease-and-desist letter to The Times claiming the newspaper had been duped into writing a “hit piece” by Stiiizy’s former chief executive. The lawyer, Ekwan Rhow, wrote it was “obvious” the former executive had leaked information, potentially from confidential arbitration proceedings, and warned he would sue The Times for defamation.

The Times never spoke with the former CEO or his attorneys and learned of his apparent falling-out with Stiiizy from Rhow’s letter. After The Times requested an interview with Rhow regarding the claims raised in his letter, a spokesman returned the call and declined to provide additional comment.

In October 2019, Huang sold a Florence Avenue storefront to Oh. The LAPD served nine search warrants at the property between March 2019 and October 2021, seizing cash, cannabis and guns from an illegal dispensary called the Plug 20 Cap, city lawyers wrote in an abatement complaint against Huang.

After purchasing the building in 2017, Huang tried and failed to evict the tenants, who had opened the dispensary without his knowledge, before eventually selling to Oh, Sitrick said.

In their complaint, city lawyers called the sale a “sham.” Huang’s company loaned Oh’s company $440,000 — the amount paid to acquire the building — creating a lien against the property for its full value, the city alleged.

Property records show that Huang’s companies also loaned money to Oh’s entities that acquired the sites of Azusa’s Finest and the Green Garden Collective, securing the loans with liens against the properties for $478,000 and $230,000, respectively.

Huang’s spokesman said the transactions were legitimate. He had trouble finding buyers for the properties, Sitrick said, so he sold them with “owner-carried” loans.

In his letter to The Times, Rhow said Huang sold the Florence Avenue building years before the city “falsely alleged” he was involved in illegal cannabis sales.

Huang and Oh agreed to pay the city a collective $450,000 without admitting wrongdoing to resolve the case. After the city attorney’s office trumpeted the settlement in a news release, a spokesperson for Huang told KTLA-TV Channel 5 that he could have proved at trial he didn’t know about the illegal cannabis sales but chose to pay a “small fine” for “convenience only.”

Huang bought the old Jerry’s Liquor building on Rosecrans Avenue in October 2018 through a holding company. Its name: Compton Great Investment.

Code inspectors first cited an illegal dispensary there about a year later, according to inspection reports. The city has charged in an abatement complaint that the Fly High 20 Collective sold cannabis there for years, “illegally, openly and notoriously.”

Sitrick said Huang wasn’t complicit in any illegal cannabis sales at the property and would “work cooperatively” with the city to prove it. David Welch, an attorney representing the city of Compton, declined to comment.

Huang used the property as collateral to borrow $960,000 from a Temple City-based lender, EC Capital-Oswego, property records show. The loan officer who authorized the loans also manages a firm that owns shares in Stiiizy’s parent company, according to company documents filed in court.

Huang borrowed $900,000 from another lender at the same Temple City address, Kao-Lin Capital Funding, securing the loan with a Torrance building, according to property records. In an abatement complaint, county authorities identified the Torrance property as an illegal dispensary called Supreme Remedies.

Kao-Lin Capital Funding also loaned $3.1 million to another of Huang’s companies that owns the site of a licensed Stiiizy dispensary in Pomona.

Huang’s spokesman said he borrowed from the companies to purchase investment properties.

In 2021, Huang sold the Rosecrans Avenue property to a company whose manager controlled another entity that acquired the sites of the Azusa’s Finest and the Plug 20 Cap dispensaries, records show.

Sheriff’s deputies raided Fly High 20 Collective on April 20, 2022. In a back office were three safes, “all of which were open and empty prior to our arrival,” a deputy wrote in a report.

The dispensary has since shut down. Detectives recovered three stolen cars this year from its parking lot, which has also served as a dumping ground, according to search warrant and code enforcement records. The walls are marred with graffiti from a local gang, Compton Tortilla Flats. During an inspection this year, code officers found homeless people squatting inside the building, which had been stripped of its wiring and wood.

But although some buildings previously owned by Huang have been left blighted after their use as illegal dispensaries, others, like a former used car lot in Wilmington, have found a new life with the state’s blessing.

After purchasing the Pacific Coast Highway property in 2018, the owner used it as collateral to borrow $650,000 from EC CapitalOswego, the same firm that lent money to Huang.

In March 2019, the LAPD searched the building, which was operating as an illegal dispensary called White Castle, according to a prosecutor’s motion. A 30-foot sign with a green cross had been raised outside.

When detectives served a warrant at the property owner’s home, they found mason jars with labels for cannabis products, tote bags printed with marijuana leaves and “Stizy [sic] cannabis products,” the prosecutor wrote in her motion.

Huang’s spokesman said he didn’t know the property owner, who wasn’t affiliated with Stiiizy. Huang had no connection to White Castle, Sitrick added.

Charged with engaging in unlicensed cannabis sales, the owner turned to Petros — the lawyer who handled Huang’s case against Mejia — to remove the tenant from the property, according to eviction records.

White Castle finally shut down after the LAPD raided it for the fifth time in eight months.

The green cross has come down. A new sign has gone up outside the building on Pacific Coast Highway, which received a license from the state to sell cannabis legally. The name?

Stiiizy.