In January 2019, just as Nikki Fried took office as Florida’s new agriculture commissioner promising to expand access to marijuana and hemp, records show that her now-fiancé sold nearly $5 million worth of stock from a marijuana company he co-founded and used much of the money to invest in a number of new cannabis businesses.
Within two years, records show that Fried’s fiancé, Jake Bergmann, had amassed interests in about a dozen cannabis companies — including at least one that obtained a hemp permit from Fried’s agency after Fried led the effort to legalize hemp in Florida.
During that same period, Fried also revealed that she is personally invested in one of Florida’s few licensed medical marijuana providers — a company that is now being acquired by the state’s biggest marijuana business in a $2.1 billion deal.
Fried, a Democrat and former medical marijuana lobbyist who is now running for governor in 2022, said she has gone “above and beyond” legal requirements to separate her personal interests in cannabis from her work promoting and regulating the industry as agriculture commissioner.
Fried also said she knows “very little” about and has no involvement with any of Bergmann’s businesses. But she said sheintends to sell off her own marijuana holdings if she’s elected governor — a position that would give Fried an even bigger role in cannabis regulation.
“If the people of the state give me the honor of representing them, I will be liquidating,” Fried said.
Fried is currently vying with former Florida governor and current U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist for the Democratic nomination; the winner of the primary will challenge incumbent Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Bergmann declined to comment.
Fried’s extensive ties to cannabis have already complicated her campaign.
She’s faced questions about her friendship with U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Panhandle Republican who is reportedly under federal investigation over allegations that include sex trafficking and sex with a minor. Gaetz has not been charged and has denied any wrongdoing.
Both Fried and Bergmann have worked closely over the years with Gaetz, who sponsored Florida’s early medical marijuana laws. And Fried recently told reporters in Tallahassee that investigators should make a decision on Gaetz or move on, a comment that was interpreted by some as defending Gaetz. Fried said she meant that “justice should be swift.”
And last week, Fried revealed more than $360,000 in previously undisclosed income that she earned as a lobbyist in 2017 and 2018 — after the Orlando Sentinel asked her office about discrepancies between financial disclosures she filed as an elected official and compensation reports she filed as a lobbyist.
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