California father pleads guilty to dosing children with psychedelic mushrooms, federal prosecutors say

SAN DIEGO (CN) — A California father admitted in court on Friday to regularly dosing his two young sons with hallucinogenic mushrooms while operating an illegal drug business in San Diego County.

Randal Vance, 43, pleaded guilty in federal court to multiple drug charges, including conspiracy to employ minors to help cultivate, produce and distribute mushrooms at locations in Fallbrook and Bonsall in North County San Diego, according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Vance, of Fallbrook, also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance, two counts of distributing a substance to minors and conspiracy to obstruct justice. He admitted that his sons were 9 and 11 when the conspiracy began.

In his plea agreement, Vance said he used two websites, psillyrabbit.com and psillyrabbitmushrooms.com, and an Instagram page, psillyrabbitca, to market and sell dried and freeze-dried mushrooms, as well as chocolates and capsules containing psilocybin, the hallucinogenic compound found in psychedelic mushrooms.

According to the press release, Vance provided the psilocybin capsules to his oldest son, who was 12 at the time, for sale to his friends. He also provided the products to his wife to distribute to others.

Vance reportedly began dosing the two boys every other day beginning in October of 2023, his plea agreement says. He eventually increased the doses to every day in March 2024.

The indictment says that Vance encouraged dosing children as young as 9 years old with psilocybin.

However, Vance’s defense attorney, Peter Blair of Blair Defense Criminal Lawyers, disputed the government’s portrayal of his client.

“Mr. Vance made statements that he micro-dosed his children and he takes full responsibility, but many of his statements were either exaggerated or wholly dishonest in an attempt to ease the anxieties of friends and relatives seeking to replace their pharmaceutical prescriptions with mushrooms for medicinal purposes,” Blair said in a statement to Courthouse News. “Some of the doses my client said he gave the children, 0.2 grams every other day for example, would have caused significant long-term effects, and the children have always denied that they felt any mind-altering effects from any of the supplements or mushrooms they were given by their father.”

Vance was originally interested in using the psychedelic compounds for potential therapeutic treatment for Lyme disease and mental illness for his wife, the attorney said.

Although he did provide his sons with psilocybin, the doses were negligible, Blair said. The two boys now live with their grandmother in West Virginia, where Vance is originally from, he said.

“Mr. Vance regretfully put his family in a horrible situation,” Blair continued. “Despite that, the children are thriving, getting straight A’s in school, and are extremely well-adjusted, showing no signs of harm from any resonant exposure to illicit substances.”

Vance began the operation believing California would legalize the psilocybin industry, similar to cannabis, Blair said. Those plans ended when Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill in 2023 that would have decriminalized certain hallucinogenic compounds.

San Diego County sheriff’s deputies and Drug Enforcement Administration agents executed search warrants in Fallbrook and Bonsall on Oct. 4, 2024, and arrested Vance.

At the Fallbrook location, authorities recovered about 204 pounds of fresh hallucinogenic mushrooms, 53 pounds of dried mushrooms and materials and equipment used to grow, harvest and process psilocybin, according to the DOJ. At the Bonsall location, they found 25 pounds of dried mushrooms, 5 pounds of psilocybin capsules, four handguns and two rifles.

Blair adamantly denied that the firearms were related to his client’s psilocybin operation.

In his plea agreement, Vance also admitted to conspiring to destroy evidence by removing the websites and deleting messages on his and his co-conspirators’ phones.

Vance is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 18 by U.S. District Judge Robert Huie, a Joe Biden appointee.

Vance’s wife, Rebecca Vance, and their friend Keir Ceballos-Rivera previously pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing on July 17 and Aug. 28, respectively.