One of Michigan’s largest marijuana processors has a new owner and a path out of receivership — marking the end of a year-long debacle involving a fraud ring run by one of its owners, financial missteps and a sloppy merger.
Jackson-based Choice Labs, known for its Crude Boys and Choice Chews brands, is set to exit receivership in early February in the hands of private lender Chicago Atlantic.
Chicago Atlantic acquired the roughly $52 million debt load of Choice Labs’ parent company, Glorious Cannabis, for an undisclosed sum last year, eliminating the company’s primary lender, Needham Bank, and becoming the stalking horse bidder for the company’s assets in a receivership in Jackson County.
Chicago Atlantic declined to comment to Crain’s for this story.
Choice Labs, and its parent company, Au Gres-based cultivator Glorious Cannabis, entered into court-sponsored receivership last February as a legal move to protect itself and its lender, Needham, from a federal investigation into Pennsylvania-based private equity operator Daryl Heller.
Heller, under his Heller Capital equity group, had a 20% stake in Glorious and a 20% stake in Choice Labs, according to an attorney representing Choice Labs.
The FBI raided Heller’s Lancaster, Pa., offices in December 2024 after being accused by investors of running a potential Ponzi scheme with a separate ATM network business.
The receivership action stemmed from a lawsuit filed by more than 2,700 investors in Heller’s ATM business, Paramount Management Group, alleging that Heller and his company stopped making payments. Many of the investors were reportedly members of the Amish and Mennonite communities, according to reporting from Lancaster Online.
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