DISPENSARY BOARD LOSES ONE MORE MEMBER

Winthrop Woman Second to Step Down From Panel Recently

AUGUSTA -- Another board member has quit the group that holds the
right to operate half Maine's medical marijuana dispensaries.

In a July 20 email to the Maine Department of Health and Human
Services, Northeast Patients Group Executive Director Becky DeKeuster
wrote that Faith Benedetti, of Winthrop, had stepped down from the
board of directors that week.

Benedetti did not return messages left Tuesday on her cell phone and
Facebook page. DeKeuster didn't return a message left on her phone.

In July, Rep. Mark Dion, D-Portland, a former Cumberland County
sheriff, told the Kennebec Journal he had also departed the board, in
June.

Benedetti's departure leaves the board with only two known members:
chairman Daniel Walker, also the group's counsel; and Paul Sevigny, a
Holden pharmacist.

Sevigny confirmed Benedetti's departure Monday, but said he wouldn't
comment on it. Walker did not respond to a message seeking comment.

In the July 20 email, DeKeuster said, "Sevigny and I are actively
recruiting board members who will help us maintain and expand the
individual areas of expertise represented. We plan to increase board
membership to seven."

On July 14, Walker wrote an email to Catherine Cobb, director of
licensing for DHHS, saying they had finalized a $2 million financing
agreement with former NBA player Cuttino Mobley.

After Northeast provided the agreement to her the next day, Cobb said
Northeast officials wanted the documentation of the final agreement to
be kept confidential as a "trade secret."

Cobb said she took no position on confidentiality, but said if
Northeast didn't provide legal proof by Aug. 3 that the agreement with
Mobley was a trade secret, the document would be released to the
Kennebec Journal.

Cobb is out of the office this week. Medical Marijuana Program
Director John Thiele said she was in the hospital and would be out of
work indefinitely.

"There is some new information that will be released to the press
probably tomorrow," Sevigny said Tuesday. "We're just getting to the
end of these processes and I wouldn't want to poison any of that."

In July, Cobb said the new agreement between representatives of
Northeast Patients Group and Mobley Pain Management and Wellness
Center would be very close to a deal outlined in a Feb. 23 letter of
intent between Northeast and Mobley.

That letter said Mobley would provide Northeast with $2 million, in
four increments, for the exclusive right to supply Northeast
dispensaries with drinks, edibles, topical solutions and alcohol-based
herbal extractions called tinctures. In exchange, is to would earn 18
percent interest for seven years.

Northeast has the exclusive right to operate dispensaries in Portland,
Kennebec County, the Bangor area and Thomaston. A Thomaston marijuana
growing facility was made operational in June.

Mobley -- whose 11-year career with four NBA teams ended in 2008 --
also will consult on security, cultivation, operations, marketing,
quality assurance and public relations, among other things, according
to the letter.

The board resignations also come on the heels of a lawsuit against
Northeast by their former California-based financial backer.

Berkeley Patients Group, sued Augusta-based Northeast Patients Group
and DeKeuster on July 6 in Cumberland County Superior Court, alleging
DeKeuster used confidential information to strike the deal with Mobley
without telling them. She was then serving as Berkeley's New England
expansion director.

Days after the letter of intent's finalization, DeKeuster resigned
from Berkeley.

DeKeuster's contract with Berkeley, submitted to the court, prohibits
her from discussing company-related confidential information without
Berkeley's written consent. It also bars her from competing for
business with Berkeley for two years after she leaves them.

The lawsuit seeks repayment of $632,195 in loans from Berkeley to
Northeast and asks the court order DeKeuster, of Augusta, to leave
Northeast.

The disclosure of Benedetti's departure was contained in a file of
emails between Cobb, representatives of Northeast Patients Group, and
Mobley Pain Management and Wellness Center provided to the Kennebec
Journal under a Maine Freedom of Access Act request.