Marijuana mogul’s home in Snowmass exempt from judge’s asset freeze

By Rick Carroll, The Aspen Times

A federal judge in Denver has ruled that more than $3 million in assets held by Colorado marijuana mogul Jeffrey Friedland be temporarily frozen, but not a Snowmass Village home that the Securities & Exchange Commission alleges he concealed through a limited liability company.

Chief U.S. District Judge Marcia Krieger’s ruling Thursday said the SEC failed to adequately provide a strong enough case that the 2,796-square-foot home at 46 Meadow Road actually belongs to Friedman or his wife.

The SEC sued Friedland last week in the U.S. Court of Denver on securities-fraud allegations that he was paid by a marijuana-based pharmaceutical company to tout its stock through blogs, media interviews and other mediums without disclosing that association. Federal securities laws make it illegal to publicize a company’s stock for compensation without disclosing that.

Friedland’s company Global Corporate Strategies, also a defendant, allegedly received 5.1 million shares in Israel-based OWC Pharmaceutical Research Corp. as payment for Friedland’s stock-promotion campaign that ran February 2016 through August 2017. Those shares were transferred to an LLC controlled by Friedland’s wife, Kathy, in January 2017, the SEC contends.

Read the full story at AspenTimes.com