Hemp advocate held on $1 million bail after Sutter County pot bust

OG Article By Chris Roberts, Reporter Watch Today's LIVE Episode on X, and Rumble

July 29, 2025

Hemp has been a contentious issue in Sutter County, and Lucas “Luke” Maxwell Wilson took the lead in advocating for the overturning of the hemp farming ban. He has been accused of illegally processing marijuana.

A man who successfully advocated for hemp farming in Sutter County earlier this year, while the industry’s future was in peril, has been accused of illegally processing tens of thousands of pounds of marijuana, valued at millions of dollars. 

Lucas “Luke” Maxwell Wilson, 45, appeared in court Friday on several felony and misdemeanor charges accusing him of illegally processing marijuana and evading thousands of dollars in taxes and fees regulated by the state Department of Cannabis Control.

Wilson, of Gridley, has led the county’s largest hemp-farming operation and worked with local and elected officials earlier this year to overturn the county’s one-year ban on cultivating the crop, which officials have struggled to financially sustain since first allowing it in 2019. 

Sutter County supervisors in April, after working with Wilson and others on a set of compromises to local hemp regulation, reversed the moratorium they had enacted just a few months before. 

Marijuana farming and processing are illegal in Sutter County, whereas hemp farming is allowed with proper licenses.

Wilson, a member of the California Department of Food and Agriculture industrial hemp advisory board, was licensed in Sutter County to cultivate 638 acres of hemp. However, authorities said that he was not currently licensed to process hemp in the county. 

‘This is a large-scale operation’ 

A code enforcement complaint led to an inspection of a rural facility near Live Oak earlier this month, which raised suspicions and led the Yuba Sutter Narcotic and Gang Enforcement Task Force to investigate, authorities said.

Sutter Superior Judge Susan E. Green said in court Friday that she had signed off on the enhancement setting Wilson’s $1 million bail amount, which requires him to prove that money used to pay bail is not from illicit activity. 

Green said that her understanding, based on search warrant documents she had reviewed, was that Wilson was suspected of using a purported hemp operation instead to process large amounts of marijuana. She said that estimates she reviewed showed that the business had driven about $25-35 million in revenue in the first half of the year. 

“The case, from what I understand, is this is a large-scale operation including exporting marijuana out of (California),” Green said. 

Probation and Parole Officer Mark Ramirez said in court that on Thursday he was at the Live Oak facility where the bust occurred. About 10,000 pounds of marijuana and related products were seized that day, which he said was about a third of the total amount at the facility.

“We ended the day (Thursday) only because the dump closed,” he said. 

The Sacramento Bee could not independently verify the estimated weights and dollar amounts.

Wilson said he would hire his own attorney and was granted a public defender in the meantime. 

Public defender Tom Quinn questioned the $1 million bail, citing the legality of the marijuana industry elsewhere in the state, and asked Green to reduce Wilson’s bail to $20,000. 

Green declined. 

“The issue is this was a hemp business that was dealing in cannabis,” she said. 

“Assuming that’s true, I just don’t see that this crime is akin to murder,” Quinn replied. 

Took lead in overturning ban 

Wilson remained in Sutter County Jail as of Monday. A bail review hearing has been set for Wednesday, with preliminary hearings scheduled for next Wednesday and Friday.

He was arrested July 23 after a complaint earlier this month led to site visits of a Live Oak facility associated with Wilson. The county’s code enforcement was tipped off about illegal hemp processing, which Wilson was not licensed for despite being licensed to grow in the county, authorities said.

A sheriff’s deputy and county employee went July 14 to inspect the property and found labor and safety violations, authorities said. 

Wilson was not licensed to process hemp in Sutter County, despite his license for growing, and filed an application for processing after the first inspection this month, said Neal Hay, Sutter County development services director. 

Workers from the county’s code enforcement and building department, along with the office of the fire marshal and sheriff’s office, returned July 23 and contacted the Yuba Sutter Narcotic and Gang Enforcement Task Force after finding what authorities described as illegal activity unrelated to hemp. 

A search warrant was later executed, leading to the charges against Wilson, and more than 10,000 pounds of cannabis seized as of last week.

Local talks around changing hemp regulation had mounted from last summer, when a new wave of neighbor complaints arose, and culminated in a one-year ban on farming while supervisors weighed the county’s long-term future for the crop. 

Wilson took the public lead on advocating to overturn the ban and allow hemp cultivation this year. Sutter County’s sheriff’s and district attorney’s offices came out against hemp farming, as did the county agricultural commissioner and the Yuba-Sutter Farm Bureau. 

Supervisors are due to revisit the issue and decide on a long-term solution by the end of the year.

By Jake Goodrick