MedMen Enterprises Inc.  (CSE: MMEN) (OTCQX: MMNFF) announced the appointment of Roz Lipsey to the role of Chief Operating Officer. She succeeds Tim Bossidy, who has served as interim Chief Operating Officer since 2020. Ms. Lipsey has served on MedMen’s executive management team since 2020 in the role of Senior Vice President, Business Operations, and brings more than 25 years of operational experience, focusing on business start-up, scaling, and strategy.

The appointment comes during the midst of the company’s saucy trial with former CFO James Parker. The trial began last week and testimony from Parker continued on Monday. According to Law360, Parker expanded upon his first day of testimony regarding moving cannabis across state lines. The report stated that Parker was sure that MedMen had stocked a Nevada grow house with cannabis plants that were grown in California. Interstate transportation of cannabis is illegal even if cannabis is legal within the state. In 2018, MedMen opened a 45,000-square-foot facility near Reno. The facility recently announced that it was going to be grown under a new company called LitHouse.  LitHouse will expand its current California production, enter the Nevada market for the first time and produce flower for MedMen’s private label line MedMen Red. MedMen also has three dispensaries in Las Vegas.

Another issue that Parker testified about was stock price manipulation. In previous court filings, Parker has said he learned MedMen was sending large amounts of money to a consulting company and was told by Bierman the money was being used to buy company stock, which would keep the price of the stock from falling. Law360 reported that Parker said on the stand, “I told him it was outright securities fraud and that it needed to stop.” Parker stated that he resigned soon after the discovery and reached out for legal advice.

Law360 reported that Parker told the jury about why he was concerned about the spending habits of Modlin and Bierman, “We’ve gone public, we have investors. It’s not their company. It’s not their money. You look at this, it starts to look like you’re enriching yourself. It exposes us, especially in situations where we’re running out of money and a number of times constantly looking at a drop-dead point of having no capital. It opens us up to a tremendous amount of liability.”

Toxic Culture

Parker has also stated in his original court filing that former CEO and Co-founder Adam Bierman created a toxic culture with his descriptions of various people. MedMen for its part has fired back saying Parker is just as guilty of these comments. It seemed according to the Law360 reporting that Parker is trying to get ahead of those accusations as the jury was shown a clip from the 2016 film “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.” Law360 wrote, “The film is about a clueless pop star, and the clip in question showed the star of the film, Andy Samberg, singing about his support of gay rights but going out of the way to make sure the audience knows he is straight. Parker said he was asked about the clip during his deposition, and said he once sent the clip to Bierman because he thought it was funny. He added that he did not think the clip was offensive.”