What a lawsuit involving a top NC lawmaker reveals about the state's hemp industry

Among the players: Bell, who simultaneously worked behind the scenes on hemp legislation in recent months while navigating an apparent falling-out with MC, is the chairman of North Carolina's powerful rules committee and the president of hemp company Asterra Labs.

• Asterra is a subsidiary of Rise Capital, a private equity fund that the controversial former University of North Carolina board of governors chairman, Harry Smith, founded and runs.
• Alicia Jurney, the attorney for Asterra and Rise, has represented plaintiffs in some of the highest-profile cases in North Carolina in recent years, including one against then-House Speaker Tim Moore and another against Rockingham County Commissioner Kevin Berger, the Senate leader's son.

Driving the news: MC, run by father and son duo Jeffrey and Bret Worley, says it approached Asterra in December 2024 because of "Rep. Bell and Mr. Smith's powerful political networks." By June 2025, the complaint says, Bell and Smith threatened to use their "positions of power and influence" to throw the Worleys in jail over a $1.6 million debt.

• Asterra has not filed its legal responses to the allegations. But documents Jurney provided to The Assembly and Axios paint a different picture of the dispute. In a June email, for example, the Worleys promised to make daily $50,000 payments to Asterra to rectify their debt, which, according to the documents, they then failed to do.

• The Worleys did not respond to requests for interviews. Their attorney declined to comment.

Of note: At its core, the lawsuit reflects a business dispute between two hemp companies over a contract gone bad. And Bell is not a named defendant.

The big picture: A pitched legal battle could embarrass everyone involved. MC's inability to pay a relatively small debt — the company says in the complaint that it grossed $48 million in 2024 — could be seen as casting doubt on its standing as an industry leader. MC's portrayal of Asterra, meanwhile, depicts Bell as a failing businessman propped up by Smith's money and desperate for help.

• Bell has championed his industry in the General Assembly, where lawmakers debate how to regulate a marketplace that Bell has called the "Wild, Wild West." In North Carolina, companies can manufacture, distribute, and sell intoxicating products to residents of any age, almost entirely unchecked. Most lawmakers say that needs to change, but they haven't agreed on how.

"I have an advantage because I'm in the room when all these decisions get made," Bell told a panel at the CHAMPS Trade Show in May 2024. "Which is not a bad place to be, by the way."

• The moderator for that panel was Bret Worley, who appears to have a "personal relationship" with the daughter of President Trump's chief of staff, according to a July 1 letter from Asterra to MC.

In MC's version of events, Asterra was on the brink of collapse in late 2024. Despite the $10 million Rise had invested and Asterra's "powerful political North Carolina network," Bell's hemp company "had failed to develop basic competencies."

• Bret Worley and his father, MC chief financial officer Jeffrey Worley, saw an opportunity. In December 2024, they approached Bell about forming a partnership to "help Asterra find its footing," the complaint says. Under the agreement, MC would source and market products to its more established consumer base.

The other side: In a statement, Jurney rejected MC's contention that it rescued Asterra. She insisted that the company was on an "upward trajectory" under Bell's leadership.

• "MC reportedly needed Asterra, because MC's market position had declined, and it hoped that by working with Asterra as a supplier, it could regain its industry standing," Jurney told The Assembly and Axios Raleigh. "Although Asterra was unaware of it when it began doing business with MC, MC appears to have been in poor financial condition and had a negative cash flow for several months before it began working with Asterra."

Zoom in: Around Memorial Day, MC missed a payment of more than $1 million to Asterra. In its complaint, the company framed it as a temporary setback.

• On June 2, John Worley emailed Bell to say he had just sent $50,000. On June 5, the Worleys agreed in writing to make $50,000 daily payments until their account was cleared, per emails provided by Jurney.
• By June 10, the good feelings had vanished. "Given the lack of the minimum $50k payment made today, we are terminating the [MC] and Asterra relationship," Rise president Brooke Smith — Harry Smith's daughter — told the Worleys.

According to screenshots included in the complaint, on June 16, Harry Smith fired off a text message to Jeffrey Worley promising "to put you and your son in jail — hitting private investigators and opposition research teams today. You buckle up, Jeff — I will see you and your unstable son in a court room."

• The next day, Asterra sent the Worleys a formal demand letter insisting that they pay about $1.58 million by June 22. On June 20, Harry Smith sent Jeffrey Worley a conciliatory email. "We don't want to hurt you or Bret and further we want nothing more than to see you guys have enormous success," he said.
• But the June 22 deadline passed, and on June 24, Harry Smith fired off another angry text to Jeffrey Worley: "We have more than enough to get BOTH of you criminally charged and we are going to do that — pay us or go to prison right here in the great state of NC Jeff." Later, one more: "I'm beyond confidant that you both get convicted of a felony(s) and I'm beyond convinced we will be able to come after you both personally on the civil side. Pay your bills or I can't help you."

MC's complaint and the correspondence Asterra provided make clear that Smith and Jurney — although not necessarily Bell — said they planned to pursue criminal charges. But nowhere in the documents does there seem to be support for the complaint's most sensational allegation: that Smith and Bell "threatened to use their powerful North Carolina networks" to imprison their former business partners.

The bottom line: Bell has held up Asterra as the gold standard of North Carolina's hemp industry and positioned himself as its most influential defender. Jurney said Bell wasn't aware that MC had been under investigation by Colorado's attorney general — and has faced other allegations of failing to pay their bills — when the companies formed a partnership.

• "If Asterra had known that the Worleys' companies had been under investigation for alleged deceptive business practices by a state attorney general's office for four years preceding the time that MC approached Asterra with its business proposal, Asterra would never have considered working with MC," she said in a statement.
• After an investigation by the Colorado attorney general, MC paid $50,000 to settle allegations that it had "deceived consumers by misrepresenting the source, origin, quality, characteristics, ingredients, and health benefits of some of its hemp products." The company denied wrongdoing in the case but has been barred from selling cannabis products in Colorado.

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