Rosa Cazares asked Oregon's cannabis regulator to remove her name from all 41 La Mota cannabis licenses four months before a federal grand jury indicted her on tax fraud charges.
Willamette Week first reported Oct. 27 that newly obtained records show Cazares, the CEO of the Portland-based cannabis chain, sent a letter to the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission (OLCC) on June 26 formally resigning from all leadership roles at La Mota and its affiliated companies. She asked the agency to stop treating her as "an active or responsible party on any La Mota license or application."
The resignation was set for Sept. 1.
On Oct. 15, a federal grand jury indicted Cazares on eight counts of willfully failing to pay $1.5 million in employment taxes in 2020 and 2021, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Oregon. The taxes included Social Security, Medicare and federal income tax withholdings owed by La Mota and a payroll company called 503 Staffing. If convicted, Cazares faces up to five years in prison on each count.
The reason Cazares sought to distance herself from the licenses in June remains unclear. Willamette Week noted she was likely aware by then that she was the subject of a federal investigation.
Despite the resignation letter, Cazares was still listed as a secretary, manager, registered agent or person with direct knowledge for 36 active LLCs in the Oregon Secretary of State's business registry as of the Willamette Week report.
Cazares runs La Mota with her longtime business partner Aaron Mitchell. The couple gained statewide notoriety in 2023 after Willamette Week revealed that then-Secretary of State Shemia Fagan had signed a $10,000-a-month consulting contract with them while her office was auditing the OLCC. Fagan resigned less than a week after the contract came to light.
Mitchell was not charged in the Oct. 15 indictment. But his own tax debts dwarf those alleged against Cazares. The Oregon Department of Revenue issued $7.9 million in new state tax liens against Mitchell and dozens of his LLCs this summer for unpaid marijuana, personal income and withholding taxes dating to 2020, Willamette Week reported in August. Separately, three federal tax liens totaling $5.7 million for personal income and employment taxes were issued to Mitchell in 2022 and 2023 and have not been released by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), meaning they remain unpaid in full.
Willamette Week reported that Cazares' attorney did not respond to a request for comment. The Oregonian reported that attorney Ron Hoevet declined to comment.
Whether the OLCC has acted on Cazares' request to strip her name from the 41 licenses has not been publicly reported. The OLCC database still showed 41 active La Mota-related licenses as of the Willamette Week report.
