Atlantic City dispensary owner seeks $5 million, linking his claim to official's bribery case
Victor Diaz has served the city with a notice that he intends to sue, a step that must come before any lawsuit. He says he is the unnamed business owner in federal charges against suspended official Kashawn McKinley.
ATLANTIC CITY — The owner of an Atlantic City cannabis dispensary is demanding $5 million from the city, saying a now-suspended city official extorted his business and that municipal meddling ultimately forced him to shut it down.
Victor Diaz, who owned the dispensary Sweet Leaf, has not filed a lawsuit. What he submitted is a tort claim notice, a formal warning of intent to sue that state law requires before anyone can take a public body to court, BreakingAC reported. The notice reached the city Oct. 1 and surfaced on the City Council's agenda for its Oct. 28 meeting, according to 92.7 WOBM and New Jersey 101.5.
Diaz identifies himself as the business owner described in the federal case against Kashawn McKinley, the city's constituent services director, the stations reported. Prosecutors did not name the business when McKinley was charged in September, and only Diaz's own account ties Sweet Leaf to the case.
McKinley, 42, who also sits on the city school board, is accused in a federal complaint of soliciting bribes and honest services fraud. Prosecutors say he sought cash and marijuana worth more than $20,000 from a cannabis business owner for help opening the shop and settling city fees, and helped get it labeled a "micro" business, dropping its yearly license renewal fee from $25,000 to $2,500. "We all need to eat," investigators quoted him as saying, New Jersey 101.5 reported in September. He has been suspended without pay. The charges are allegations, and McKinley is presumed innocent.
Diaz's attorney, Kevin Starkey, says city interference drove the dispensary out of business, the outlets reported. Beyond McKinley, the notice names current and former Cannabis Review Board members, licensing staff and as many as 100 unidentified employees, and it raises civil rights and racketeering claims, according to BreakingAC.
"Claimants contend that they were subjected to unlawful, arbitrary, discriminatory, retaliatory, coercive, and corrupt governmental conduct arising from the misuse of municipal authority and influence within Atlantic City's cannabis regulatory process," the notice says, as quoted by BreakingAC.
No response from the city or McKinley's public defender appeared in the reports.