La Mota CEO Rosa Cazares Indicted on Federal Charges Over $1.54 Million in Unpaid Payroll Taxes
PORTLAND, Ore. — A federal grand jury in Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon, has indicted Rosa Cazares, chief executive officer of Oregon cannabis company La Mota. The indictment, announced October 15 by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Oregon, charges that Cazares willfully failed to collect, account for and pay over federal payroll taxes between March 2020 and December 2021.
Prosecutors say Cazares oversaw the finances of the La Mota cannabis chain and of 503 Staffing LLC, a payroll processing company, and was responsible for withholding federal income, Social Security and Medicare taxes from employees' wages and remitting them to the IRS. Across eight calendar quarters, the unpaid trust fund taxes totaled $1,542,413, with each quarter forming a separate count — eight counts in all. If convicted, she faces up to five years in federal prison on each count, plus fines and restitution, for a combined maximum of 40 years. Prosecutors stress that an indictment is only an allegation and that Cazares is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
Cazares has been a prominent political donor in Oregon. In 2023, then-Secretary of State Shemia Fagan resigned after it emerged that she had taken a $10,000-a-month consulting job with a company affiliated with Cazares while her office was auditing the state cannabis regulator. According to the Statesman Journal, Cazares also faces a federal tax lien of about $1.4 million from 2023. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Meredith D.M. Bateman. (GSM, based on the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Oregon and the Statesman Journal)
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 俄勒冈州一家大麻药房（示意照片，非涉案门店）。Elsa Olofsson 摄，CC BY 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons 发布。A cannabis dispensary in Oregon (illustrative photo, not a store involved in the case). Photo by Elsa Olofsson, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
