The Austin Chronic: Notorious Lawyer Adam Reposa Gets Raided For Running an Illegal Dispensary

Adam Reposa (right) and a co-worker who identified himself as “Moisha Chingawitz” at the site of a January raid on their cannabis dispensary (Photo by Kevin Curtin)

When there are questions surrounding the broad interpretation of laws or limits on freedoms, clarity often comes from people whose actions are radical, risky, and sometimes ridiculous.

As such, Adam Reposa deserves credit for answering one such question: How flagrantly can you sell weed in Austin before cops show up and raid you?

Reposa is notorious for being a relentless, in-your-face attorney whose brazen courtroom conduct has twice landed him in jail on contempt charges – once for pantomiming a jerking-off gesture toward a magistrate and another time for declining a judge’s order to approach the bench and declaring: “I want to show the people how hard it is to get a fair trial in this court.” He’s a chronic envelope-pusher, a 20-year alpha gremlin of the local legal system, and the proverbial mammal in the adage “Never wrestle with a pig: You’ll both get dirty and the pig will enjoy it.”

He’s also been selling a lot of cannabis.

His ludicrously forward-facing operation, ATX Budtenders, had a website with a menu, a phone number (737/Gas-Buds), and a house on the Eastside with a pink ice cream truck that acted as a center of operations.

Shortly before 10am on Jan. 22, the property was raided by an interdepartmental law enforcement team, including a SWAT unit. According to a Search Warrant Return and Inventory Report, the raid took in unspecified amounts of “Bulk marijuana,” “Bulk THC edibles,” psilocybin mushrooms, two rifles, two cell phones, “Various legal documents,” and an “Undetermined amount of US Currency.”

Though two people working as dispatchers for ATX Budtenders were present at the time of the search, no one was arrested or cited. Reposa tells The Austin Chronic that it was roughly 100 pounds of cannabis that was confiscated – less than the threshold that merits federal charges.

“And it was all CDB,” Reposa points out over the enchilada special at Texas Chili Parlor in late February.

You mean CBD?

“Whatever the fuck it is. It’s all CDB – that legal shit,’” he scoffs. “That’s our defense and we’re sticking with it. Try to try me and see what happens!”

While the Search Warrant Return and Inventory Report is undersigned by APD Officer Brandon Stewart, a media representative for APD told the Chronic that their officers merely assisted in the operation. According to a Travis County Sheriff’s Office public information officer, the search was led by the DEA, and TCSO SWAT also participated.

There’s overlap between the two aforementioned agencies though. Search warrant documentation lists TCSO Officer Mario Sotelo as the affiant. Sotelo is also a task force officer for the Drug Enforcement Administration. A TCSO source, speaking on background, explained to the Chronic that task force agents who assist the DEA have the same authority as actual DEA agents, but have limited jurisdiction and their salary is paid by the local sheriff’s office.

Reposa disagrees that it can be considered a DEA-led raid if it’s sheriff’s officers assisting the DEA, rather than federal agents from the Department of Justice.

“I always said I would serve a cop,” he states. “I never knew it would be DEA ... cuz it wasn’t!”

According to the search warrant affidavit, the investigation into Reposa’s dispensary began in mid-November from an anonymous source on the DEA Tip Line. Then a confidential source was prompted by officers to make three controlled purchases from ATX Budtenders in November (buying an ounce of marijuana), December (another ounce of marijuana, plus edibles and a promotional blunt), and January (mushrooms).

The affidavit also makes reference to a decade-old viral commercial for Reposa’s law office in which he repeatedly rams a car with his truck while screaming, “If you are prosecuting my client, YOU... ARE... IN... MY... WAYYYYY.”

The warrant was signed by Austin Municipal Court Judge Christyne E. Harris Schultz on Jan. 19. Schultz chose not to avail herself for an interview. The question the Chronic wanted to ask her was, “Would you have signed the warrant if you didn’t believe that charges would be filed?”

Because seven weeks after the raid, Reposa has still not been charged with a crime. He contends that confiscation without prosecution amounts to cops robbing cannabis dealers.

“They’re just trying to disrupt the market,” asserts Reposa, who has pivoted ATX Budtenders into a cannabis brand called Mr. Chinga which sells the “cheapest, fastest, freshest” T-shirts though the website savingmrchinga.com. “There are people who are trying to get established within the market and they want to disrupt that so when legalization and licensing happens, nobody has already garnered stable market relationships. They’re not trying to keep the weed out of people’s hands – they’re just robbing people.”

This is why Reposa is now loudly proclaiming: “I want to go to prison.”

Reading between the subterfuge, I suspect that Reposa actually wants to use the matter to make a statement against unjust cannabis laws while also making prosecutors look foolish for upholding them. He plans on representing himself in court, if he can successfully bait prosecutors to bring a case against him.

“There’s a fundamental constitutional question. Once we know marijuana is not dangerous – and there’s a literal FDA report done in the last year on this subject – how substantially are the government’s abilities to prosecute a non-dangerous drug and put people in prison? Slightly impaired, completely impaired, or not impaired at all?” he demands, all but banging his fist on the Chili Parlor table. “Because if you say 'not impaired at all,’ you are probably a white guy federal lawyer who’s made a lot of money going into the court system. How you gonna tell someone they can’t use a non-dangerous herb that don’t hurt nobody? If it’s a right, it’s a right. Either you understand the concept of liberty or you don’t – and if you don’t, then yeah lock me up.”

One prosecutorial system that will not be working to lock him up is Travis County District Court. On Jan. 24, a motion was granted allowing District Attorney José Garza to recuse his office from prosecuting the matter and instead appointing a pro tem prosecutor. A rep at Garza’s office reviewed the Chronicle’s copy of the motion, but did not offer responses to why the recent primary winner is recusing himself or which court would be assigned as pro tem prosecutor.

“I wanted them as prosecutor,” Reposa says of Garza’s office. “Because they’re soft as baby shit.”

This is part 1 in a strange serialized saga of the raid on ATX Budtenders.

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