The unedited letter:
"My name is Otto Hilbert. I am an attorney in Colorado and was engaged initially by John
McKowen to review an informal investigation relating to Two Rivers and GrowCo. Over a
short period of time, I became involved in the Marijuana Enforcement Division’s hearing
regarding its denial of marijuana licenses to Johnny Cannaseed, John McKowen and
Chad Kirby. Further on, I was engaged to review the pending litigation in Pueblo,
consisting of six consolidated actions into one, now set for trial for three weeks in
February. Additionally, I have worked with different individuals and issues within Two
Rivers, GrowCo, GCP 1 and GCP 2, GCP SU, McGrow, Johnny Cannaseed, Suncanna,
Amerijuana and Quality Choice. I have dealt with Officers, directors, employees, other
lawyers, the MED, the Court and numerous investors. I have reviewed thousands upon
thousands of documents and agreements, emails and texts.
This is a 30,000 foot analysis, and it is my honest opinion, unprompted and unvarnished,
of what has transpired to date and whom I, were I an investor, would trust going forward.
As you know, this whole business structure revolves around building state-of-the-art
greenhouses and leasing them, ensuring that the rent is paid, and that the tenants have
all the tenant services they need to be successful and learn how to properly use the
significant equipment provided as part of the greenhouse lease. Put that way, this should
be simple.
However, it is anything but simple, and the reigning reason is, these tenants, marijuana
growers and sellers, are cowboys. Essentially, you have people who have grown and
sold marijuana in their parents’ basement or their own garage, when Marijuana was
illegal. The result is, you have some fairly unsavory characters in the industry who
engage in self-dealing at every turn and who get wide-eyed, greedy and arrogant when
they see the prospects and the money that their marijuana cultivation can produce in this
rather high tech environment. This not one tenant here or there, but has proven to be
universal.
This overview is not intended to rehash the past, but to build a better future in this
model. That said, Aaron Van Wingerden and his long-time buddy, Tim Beall, decided to
get into this model in a big way. They agreed to build the greenhouse that is GCP 1, and
then to run the grow through Aaron’s company, Suncanna. You know the rest, but they
breached every agreement they ever saw, were horrifically late and tremendously over
budget in construction and then absolutely blew up Suncanna on the production side.
Now, grabbing onto anything for a life raft, Tim is still “consulting” with Quality Choice,
screwing up their operation, such that Quality Choice now faces eviction, he almost took
Amerijuana down, but they fired him, he almost ruined McGrow, but they fired him, he
tried to sabotage GrowCo, but they fired him too, and he was successful in ruining
Suncanna, his own company. Aaron is trying to be quiet, probably on advice of counsel,
given the upcoming trial, but he and Tim are partners in this whole bizarre plot,
essentially to take over the whole GCP 1 and 2 greenhouses for nothing, leaving the
investors and all the other entities high and dry. It sounds crazy, and it is a little crazy,
but it is what Aaron and Tim are about, I kid you not.
The million-dollar question is why? Both Aaron and Tim stood to get rich in a short
period of time if they simply built the greenhouse as planned and ran Suncanna as they
said they could. But, they want it all; they got greedy.
Who has been the investor’s best ally through this series of storms?--John McKowen.
For whatever reason, he is as polarizing as Donald Trump, but he is quite a bit like our
President, in that he works hard (he and I speak regularly before 5 in the morning), he’s
honest and he protects his investors ferociously. And let’s be honest, he is the one who
put this whole structure together and raised the money to do it and he is still running the
day to day stuff of this greenhouse business.
Now, of all the tenants, Mike at Amerijuana seems honest, he was smart enough to hire
Russ Coppock to run the greenhouse, and Russ is competent and honest, and the Evo
Labs extractor people seem like normal, hard working business people. Amerijuana’s
half of the greenhouse is clean, well-organized, well-thought out, and it’s finally turned
the corner to success. Hopefully, Amerijuana can just take over the whole greenhouse,
3,600 plants, and this thing will be off the races, finally. Otherwise, once Quality Choice
is evicted, another good tenant will need to be secured, not an easy task.
All the baloney you’ve heard about John McKowen is, again from my perspective,
completely untrue. He’s never diverted a penny, he’s grinding in the middle of the night
and all day, trying to figure out a way to make this project sing as his other business
ventures have, and I think you are about to be pleased with your investment, if you can
just be patient a little longer; And I know you have been patient, and I understand your
frustration--anyone would be frustrated--but success is right around the corner, I see it
and I feel it. If we can just stay unified and stay focused, this could and I think will be a
great opportunity, the great opportunity John sold to you in the first place.
I have incredible detail to support every theory and every word in this document. If you
need anything, if you have any questions, if you want any documents, whatever, I’m
around. One caution, I’m really busy trying to clean everything up so this can go forward
on far better footing, but I will get back to you.
Thank you,
Otto"
