The Portland Police Bureau is attempting to seize more than $30,000 from the owner of Shroom House, the store that was raided and shuttered late last year for illegally selling psilocybin.
The brightly colored storefront at West Burnside Avenue and Northwest 16th Avenue openly sold psychedelic mushrooms and products containing psilocybin for weeks last winter, even though recreational sales are prohibited by Oregon law.
Officers seized $13,231 in the December raid.
In March, police attempted to seize an additional $17,231.87 from a bank account connected to Shroom House’s owner, 32-year-old Steven Tony Tachie, Jr., according to court records. KGW first reported the effort.
Deputy City Attorney Mike Porter said the civil forfeiture proceeding, which allows law enforcement to seize property and money suspected of being associated with a crime, has been abated in the Multnomah County Circuit Court until Tachie’s criminal case is resolved.
On Dec. 16, 2022, Tachie and store manager Jeramiahs Geronimo, 42, were each indicted by a grand jury on 40 felony charges, including money laundering, unlawful possession of a controlled substance and unlawful distribution of a controlled substance within 1,000 feet of a school.
Cathedral School, a Catholic school serving kindergarteners, elementary students and middle schoolers, sits about one block from the Shroom House’s former location.
Tachie pleaded not guilty to all 40 counts and is awaiting trial at his home in British Columbia, Canada, where he is helping care for his infant daughter, according to court records. Tachie was released from police custody on May 5 and is required to wear a GPS tracker and conduct routine check-ins for the time being.
Geronimo pleaded guilty to one count each of unlawful delivery of a controlled substance within 1,000 feet of a school, unlawful delivery of a controlled substance and money laundering. The state dismissed the remaining 37 charges against him, as well as charges against two other store employees, according to court records.
Geronimo was sentenced to 10 days in jail, three years probation and 80 hours of community service on the controlled-substances count. He will be sentenced on the remaining two charges next June, as reported by The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Oregon legalized the hallucinogenic compound psilocybin in November 2020 for people 21 and older, but only when administered under the supervision of a trained facilitator in a licensed service center. Epic Healing Eugene, the state’s first licensed psilocybin treatment center, opened its doors in May.
The state also decriminalized small, user amounts of street drugs statewide in the 2020 general election, reducing misdemeanor drug possession to a non-criminal violation.
— Nick Gibson; [email protected]; 971-393-8259; @newsynicholas
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