Suffolk County Sheriff Steve Tompkins is scheduled to look in courtroom subsequent week for an arraignment after he was arrested earlier this month in Florida on fees that he extorted an govt at a Boston-based hashish firm, in keeping with courtroom information.
Tompkins was initially scheduled to report back to pretrial providers on the federal courthouse in Boston by 10 a.m. Friday, in keeping with federal prosecutors, however it’s unclear if the Democrat confirmed up. A message left with pretrial providers was not instantly returned.
Hours after Tompkins was speculated to arrive on the courthouse, federal Justice of the Peace Decide M. Web page Kelly scheduled Tompkins’ preliminary look and arraignment for Wednesday at 2:15 p.m. in courtroom 24 on the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse within the Seaport.
Tompkins didn’t have an lawyer listed in federal courtroom information as of Friday afternoon.
Spokespeople for the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Division didn’t return cellphone calls or emailed messages on Friday that sought to verify whether or not Tompkins had already traveled again to Massachusetts from Florida and if he had an lawyer representing him.
Federal prosecutors accused Tompkins of pressuring an govt at a Boston hashish enterprise for inventory within the firm earlier than it was set to launch an preliminary public providing, together with by reminding the person who he helped the corporate in its Boston licensing efforts.
Authorities haven’t named the corporate.
The manager, in keeping with prosecutors, “believed and feared that Tompkins would use his official position as sheriff to jeopardize” the preliminary public providing and a partnership with the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Division that was key to the corporate’s hashish license.
After signing an up to date partnership settlement in 2020 and elevated stress on the chief, federal prosecutors stated Tompkins allegedly obtained a pre-IPO curiosity in firm inventory after the person “relented to Tompkins’ demands.”
Federal prosecutors stated Tompkins wired a $50,000 fee from his retirement account to a different account managed by the chief to buy inventory within the firm at a pre-IPO worth.
However years later, the inventory decreased in worth, and Tompkins “allegedly demanded a refund of $50,000 and, despite the decrease in the value of Tompkins’s investment, Individual A agreed to Tompkins’s demands for full repayment of $50,000,” prosecutors stated in a press release.
“Subsequently, from approximately May 2022 to July 2023, Individual A refunded Tompkins $50,000 investment by issuing Tompkins five checks. Allegedly in accordance with Tompkins’s wishes, Individual A wrote memos on certain checks that read ‘loan repayment’ and ‘[company] expense’ to disguise the nature of some of the payments,” prosecutors stated.
A federal grand jury indicted Tompkins, 67, on two counts of extortion beneath coloration of official proper. A federal choose in Florida launched him on a $200,000 bond and ordered him to journey to Massachusetts to face proceedings within the Bay State.
Earlier Herald reporting was used on this article.
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