Julio Jones of the National Football League’s (NFL) Tennessee Titans is being sued in connection with money laundering and fraud, the Nashville Tennessean reports. Filed by California cannabis company Genetixs in Los Angeles Superior Court, the suit names Jones, former Atlanta Falcons teammate Roddy White, and his company SLW Holdings, as defendants.
Genetixs alleges the pair illegally harvested and sold over $3 million a month of cannabis on the unregulated market, the report says.
In the lawsuit, Jones and White are accused of working with John Van Beek, an ex-Genetixs manager who was fired in March 2021. Van Beek is accused of “breach of contract, the failure to report cannabis sales and not providing budgets, invoices, expenditures and other paperwork to the company,” the report reveals.
Furthermore, Van Beek is alleged to have turned off cameras in the facility and at one point prevented a new manager from entering Genetixs’ campus. Additionally, the group is alleged to have abandoned the facility to the landlord, looting 22 cannabis harvests and damaging machinery worth millions of dollars. As a result of the facility abandonment, the California Department of Cannabis Control is asking Genetixs to forfeit their license on the grounds they are not operating at their designated location, according to the Tennessean.
Attorney Rafe Emanuel, who represents Jones through SLW Holdings, told the Tennessean that “the vague allegations against SLW Holdings LLC and its members [White and Jones] are meritless” and that he looks forward to defending the “conspiracy theories” against his clients in court.
The Tennessean reports SLW Holdings filed a related restraining order against Genetixs in May, but the accusations have not been substantiated in court.
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