The arraignment of Suffolk County Sheriff Steven W. Tompkins for allegedly extorting a cannabis company has been pushed back a day to Thursday, records show.
Tompkins’s appearance in US District Court in Boston, initially scheduled for Wednesday, was moved to Thursday afternoon due to a “scheduling conflict,” legal filings said.
Details of the conflict weren’t disclosed.
Tompkins, a prominent Democrat in Boston political circles, was arrested earlier this month in Florida for allegedly pressuring the company under the threat of revoking a partnership with his office that was central to its licensing application.
Prosecutors allege that in addition to forcing a company official to sell him stock for $50,000 before the venture went public, Tompkins subsequently demanded he be repaid after the value of his shares sank below his initial investment.
Tompkins has served as sheriff since 2013, overseeing the Nashua Street and South Bay jails in Boston and other detention operations in Suffolk County. He was initially appointed sheriff by former governor Deval Patrick, and then won the seat in the following election.
He has been very active in local Democratic politics, offering up endorsements and seeking his own. He has appeared at rallies and campaign events alongside leading political figures, including Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, and once served as a campaign adviser to Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Tompkins has not resigned nor given any indication that he plans to in light of the criminal charges, though he recently stepped down from his Roxbury Community College board post.
Before he was named sheriff, Tompkins worked as the department’s chief of external affairs and created the Common Ground Institute, a vocational training program for inmates about to be released, as well as The Choice Program, which sends correctional officers into Boston’s public schools.
As part of the legislation that shaped the cannabis industry in Massachusetts, the state requires businesses, as part of the licensing process, to lay out plans to promote diversity and invest in individuals and communities disproportionately affected by previous cannabis prohibitions.
Federal prosecutors allege a cannabis company hoping to open in Boston sought to meet that licensing requirement through an agreement with Tompkins to train and hire people recently released from jail. But Tompkins used that partnership to extort the stock deal, prosecutors allege.
The indictment of Tompkins didn’t name the cannabis company. But a person familiar with the matter confirmed it is Ascend Mass, part of Ascend Cannabis, a multistate retailer whose local operations were once run by Tompkins’s close friend Andrea Cabral. Cabral has since left the company.
She was previously Suffolk County sheriff, and Tompkins was her top aide. When she was appointed to a statewide post as public safety secretary in late 2012, Patrick tapped Tompkins as her successor.
Cabral is not the Ascend official who was allegedly extorted, according to the source, who asked for anonymity because they are not authorized to speak about it publicly.
Ascend continues to operate the store in question on Friend Street in Boston, which was relicensed most recently in November, according to the state’s Cannabis Control Commission.
Material from prior Globe stories was used in this report.
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.