Austin Chronic: The Many Crusades of Adam Reposa
Months after being raided, lawyer continues to taunt the courts, the cops, and Ken Paxton
By Kevin Curtin, Fri., June 14, 2024
I doubt the SWAT van had even been refueled before Adam Reposa began scheming on how to turn getting raided into an opportunity for new freedom-pushing antics.
The brazen attorney – whose lawyering sometimes resembles villainous wrestler promo – had been running an unlicensed cannabis dispensary out of an East Austin home before officers representing three different agencies stormed in for a morning raid on Jan. 22, seizing roughly 100 pounds of purported marijuana, plus edibles and cash.
As reported in the first installment of this serialized saga (see “Notorious Lawyer Adam Reposa Gets Raided For Running an Illegal Dispensary,” March 15), charges have yet to be filed against Reposa or the two associates present for the raid, and District Attorney José Garza was granted a motion to be recused from prosecuting the case. A D.A. official, on background, later told The Austin Chronic that the recusal had been done to avoid conflicts of interest with Reposa being a practicing defense attorney and someone who office staff knows personally. No other court has since filed charges against Reposa.
You’d assume that someone who’d just had flash-bang grenades thrown into their home would quietly check themselves out of the game, not fly into fuck-you mode. But since Adam Reposa already firmly exists in fuck-you mode, it was time to lean in.
His ATX Budtenders business – which he described in a recent legal filing as a “Washington D.C. style gifting dispensary” – would soon begin selling a line of Mr. Chinga T-shirts printed with a variety of imaginatively illustrated caricatures. Among them are an unshapely Ken Paxton (“Ken Sucks Ton”) with pockets full of bribe money, Greg Abbott depicted as a Nazi scientist, and a rendering of Deputy Sheriff Mario Sotelo – who was the affiant of the search warrant – as Nintendo’s Mario, on a ghost ship with bags marked “Property of Adam Reposa.”
And what would any public spite campaign be without a theme song? In a parody of Motörhead’s “Ace of Spades,” Reposa manages a surprisingly solid Lemmy Kilmister impression, replacing the titular phrase with “Ounce of Weed.” The song taunts both TCSO officers, who he calls “Plastic badge federales,” and the courts, snarling: “I see it in your style/ Let’s have a jury trial.”
The motive of the aforementioned antics are obvious: Reposa, a freedom junkie born on the Fourth of July, is taking aim at people and institutions he views as infringing on Americans’ fundamental rights: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and smoking blunts. Meanwhile, other extracurricular crusades can blur the lines between righteousness and antagonism.
Outside the Travis County D.A.’s Office in late May, Reposa looked like an attorney from the shoulders down: cuffed dress shirt, suspenders, pleated trousers. Up top, he wore the shaggy mane of a Weedwolf character, while holding a picket sign that says: “No Way José!!! Do Your Job!” Three costumed associates held signs reading: “No Child Should Have to Look at Olde Man-Dyck.”
Reposa’s admitted animosity toward Austin’s courts, which have twice jailed him on contempt charges, has inspired this side quest, spotlighting the bias and “white entitlement” that he claims is ingrained in the local municipal culture.
On that day he was proclaiming that a prominent Austin defense attorney is being undercharged after allegedly masturbating in front of children and their mother on a walking trail.
Indeed, an arrest affidavit obtained by the Chronicle reports that Christopher Gunter, who actually served as Travis County’s assistant D.A. in the Eighties, was arrested on April 27 in the Mills Pond park on an indecent exposure charge. The police filing includes this passage:
“The victim was informed by her 14-year-old child that he knew Christopher was masturbating and that his, Christopher, penis was fully erect because they just talked about sex education in school.”
Reposa was stoking outrage over Gunter’s alleged incident being classified as indecent exposure, a misdemeanor, with no bond conditions restricting his contact with children. Reposa views it as a clear felony case because kids were involved. As proof, he’s produced an affidavit of a June 23 arrest involving a separate individual also masturbating near a local running trail, also in the vicinity of a 14-year-old, that resulted in felony charges of indecency with a child.
“The question is: Is it a threat to our democracy that a high-profile lawyer gets to jerk off in front of kids without the same liability that this Black dude gets?” Reposa challenges. “And if you ask that to these West Austin people, they’re going to look at you like you’re speaking Mandarin fuckin’ Chinese. That’s what white entitlement is.”
Attorney Gene Anthes, a law partner of Christopher Gunter who’s representing him on this matter, says Gunter is innocent and characterizes the arrest as “clearly a case of misidentification on the part of the complaining witness.” Anthes believes he and Gunter proved as much to the case detective by taking him to the scene of the alleged incident last week and showing him where Gunter had been at the time.
Asked if he considers Gunter and Reposa rivals, Anthes said: “You know, goddammit, Adam is an excellent litigator, but I think the thing that makes him an excellent litigator is his mental instability. So I wouldn’t say they’re rivals, I’d say we’re all tired of Adam’s shenanigans.”
Our D.A. source explained that the D.A.’s Office has no input on initial charging decisions – which, in this case, were made by TCSO officers. As a misdemeanor, the case goes to the county court and, for it to be elevated to a felony, it would need to be presented to a grand jury.
Speaking of legal disagreements, Ken Paxton’s lawsuit against the city of Austin, aiming to reverse a voter-approved ordinance that decriminalized marijuana possession locally, saw its earliest in-person court hearing on June 10 in Travis County District Court. Prior to the hearing, a representative for the city’s litigation department confirmed that both the city of Austin and local progressive organizers Ground Game Texas have filed motions to dismiss the attorney general’s suit. On June 4, Adam Reposa joined the fray, filing his own motion to dismiss.
While the other two motions read with measured legalese and contain vast case law references, Reposa’s filing comes in hot, calling Ken Paxton a “Nazi party throwback,” comparing Texas’ handling of cannabis laws to a “new era of Juneteenth,” and declaring the dangers of marijuana to be a myth created by government actors, while making a constitutional claim on the 14th Amendment.
“Americans have a fundamental right to be free from government lies as a promise of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” Reposa’s motion reads. “Adam Reposa, having been lied on by government, robbed by government, and unafraid of government, represents the fundamental nature of American freedom and comes to ask this Court as an American and a Texan to find with total clarity once and for all that the facts are clear, Marijuana is not dangerous, and to characterize marijuana as such in your search warrant affidavit violates the protections guaranteed by the Texas Constitution and the U.S. Constitution, and is rank player hating.”
Then in a legendary move that seems daring even by his standards, Reposa included the ATX Budtenders current menu on the legal filing against the attorney general:
“21 strains from $80 an ounce to $240 an ounce
Gummies up to 200 mg of CDB
Pens vapes and all that
Concentrated Chinga, Mr. Chinga, Chinga Dinga Bringa Thinga to Ringa and Singa
Pre-rolls 5 pack $20.”
