Green Angel CBD is free to do business undeterred after the New York Police Department dropped charges it brought last month over misidentified hemp supplies.
On November 2, New York police boasted on social media that they had seized hundreds of pounds of marijuana from the company, but Green Angel owners complained the substance was actually hemp.
Now the case won’t move forward, but that doesn’t mean the company will get its supply back.
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced the charges against Green Angel would no longer press the charges as the substance was in fact misidentified and turned out to be legal, according to Huffington Post. [1]
“The substance seized in this case contains less than .06% THC, which makes it legal hemp under federal and, as of yesterday, state law,” Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez said in a statement Tuesday after the charges were dropped. The police raid seized 106 pounds of hemp. [2]
Monday featured the passage of a bill in Albany establishing state level regulations of hemp and cannabidiol, or CBD, in addition to the 2018 Farm Bill that legalized the substance at the federal level.
Brothers Ronen and Oren Levy, who run Green Angel CBD, provided NYPD with documents from Vermont police which showed the plants tested below the legal limit of THC when they shipped out of that state to the location of the Brooklyn raid. This didn’t stop the seizure.
According to CBS affiliate WLNY, the brothers shipped the hemp from Fox Holler Farms in Vermont. [2]
“Everything could have been cut short just by looking at the right papers and going the right channels,” Green Angel's Ronen Levy told WLNY. “That was not done. Thank God today that the court looked over all the paperwork and dropped our charges.” [2]
According to the New York Post, the shipment NYPD seized was worth as much as $60,000. Still, it isn’t clear whether the police will turn over the hemp to the Levy’s. [3]
“Because the substance appears to have been imported outside of New York’s regulatory guidelines, the release of the property would be a determination to be made by the NYPD in consultation with the Department of Agriculture,” Prosecutor Kerri Row told the Post. [3]
Sources
[2] https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2019/12/10/cbd-shop-hemp-shipment-charges-dropped-marijuana/
[3] https://nypost.com/2019/12/10/nypd-drops-case-against-hemp-dealer-but-may-keep-his-haul/
