SmackDown Live general manager Shane McMahon reportedly filed a lawsuit last year against the owner of a Connecticut company based in growing marijuana that he invested finances into, according to the New York Daily News.
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There are currently 29 states and the District of Columbia that have legalized marijuana for either recreational or medical use, which means an early investment could have brought large profits. However, McMahon filed the lawsuit last year in a Connecticut court after accusing EnviroGrow's owner, Joe Palmieri, of misleading him about the state of the company.
According to the lawsuit, Palmieri approached McMahon about investing and told him the company's modules were state of the art, which allowed "around-the-clock growth in a climate-controlled environment that was safe from theft."
After investing in the company, McMahon traveled to Fort Collins, Colorado, to see the EnviroGrow's manufacturing plant first hand, but found it was virtually nonexistent, according to the lawsuit.
McMahon claimed he demanded a return on his investment, but Palmieri refused to pay him back.
McMahon, the son of WWE founder Vince McMahon and United States Small Business Administration Administrator Linda McMahon, reportedly spent $500,000 for a large stake in the firm EnviroGrow, which sells modules in states where marijuana is legal for medical or recreational use.
His role was to help the modules — which are similar to shipping containers — get some attention in the expanding world of cannabis farms and sales.
"He thought it was going to be a big boom and make a lot of money," said a source with knowledge of the company.
It's worth noting that McMahon's apparent pro-marijuana view differs from some of his mother's fellow cabinet members, in particular Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has been an outspokenly opposed to legalized marijuana and once said, "good people don't smoke marijuana."
In February, Sessions assembled a task force of officials to review a policy from the Obama administration that has prevented feds from cracking down on states that have already legalized recreational use of marijuana.
In 2013, James Cole, a deputy attorney general at the Justice Department, wrote a proposal in regards to how the feds should approach states that do not have prohibitions on the drug. The memo noted that although marijuana is illegal at the federal level, the Justice Department would defer its right to challenge the legalization laws in those states if strict regulations were enacted.
"I've never felt that we should legalize marijuana," Sessions said at a Sept. 20 press conference when asked about federal enforcement.
A spokeswoman for the SBA didn't respond to the Daily News' request for a comment from Linda McMahon regarding her son's investment or the legalization of marijuana in general.
