'Professional Conman' Gets 25 Years In Prison For $18.4M Fake Hemp Farm Scheme

LOS ANGELES, CA — A disbarred Beverly Hills attorney was sentenced Wednesday to 25 years in prison for an $18.4 million investment scheme centered around a hemp farm that didn't exist. Prosecutors say he ran the investment fraud while he was completing a sentence in a prior criminal case.

Mark Roy Anderson, 70, who was living in Beverly Hills while on supervised release after serving more than 11 years in federal prison in the earlier case, pleaded guilty in April 2024 to two federal wire fraud counts. He was sentenced on Wednesday, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

According to his plea agreement, Anderson engaged in separate schemes committed shortly after his release from federal prison but while on home confinement and, later, while on supervised release for a previous fraud conviction.

Anderson pitched Harvest Farm Group to investors, which he said was a Kern County hemp farm whose crops were used to make CBD or Delta 8 products, such as cosmetics, prosecutors said in a release.

When pitching investors, Anderson assured potential partners that he was not the same person who had previously been convicted of mail fraud, wire fraud, grand theft, forgery, preparing false evidence and money laundering, as part of a history of convictions dating back to the 1980s, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

In the second scheme, which ran from April 2021 to May 2023, Anderson deceived investors by soliciting money for Bio Pharma and Verta Bottling, two of his sham companies, by claiming that these businesses successfully manufactured, bottled and packaged commercial products.

Specifically, Bio Pharma purportedly manufactured and sold products infused with CBD, including products such as CBD-infused avocado oil, olive oil, pain cream, gummies, tequila and chili oil. Anderson also claimed that Verta Bottling manufactured and sold beverages and a variety of food products.

Anderson falsely stated that his bottling companies owned and possessed millions of dollars' worth of assets, including — in Bio Pharma's case — hemp biomass, CBD isolate, CBD oil, and — in Verta Bottling's case -- manufacturing equipment and an assignable lease for a warehouse to manufacture and sell its products.

In total, Anderson solicited more than $18.8 million from 45 victims for both schemes, causing victims to lose about $18.4 million, prosecutors said.

Anderson in 2012 was sentenced to 135 months in federal prison for running a scheme that saw him collect $9.5 million from 14 people. He told investors they were backing various oil ventures, but in reality he used the funds to pay for personal expenses — as well as an interest in the now-closed Prego restaurant in Beverly Hills, according to a release from the FBI.

During his 2012 sentencing, Judge Percy Anderson called the disbarred lawyer "a professional conman," who had prior convictions stemming from a "decade-long frenzy of fraudulent activity in the 80s," according to the FBI.

In the current case, prosecutors claim that Anderson used investor's money for expenses including more than $650,000 worth of luxury and vintage vehicles, over $400,000 in cash withdrawals, more than $142,000 in retail purchases and more than $1.3 million spent to purchase a residence and surrounding citrus groves in Ojai.

City News Service contributed to this report.