Deputies seize $88,000 in cash in traffic stop

Lexington Dispatch ^ | 9/27/06 | SEAN JAREM

[elkfersupper]

Two men traveling south on Interstate 85 southwest of Lexington Tuesday told Davidson County sheriff's deputies that the $88,000 in cash they had hidden in their car was to buy a house in Atlanta.

Officers with the sheriff office's Interstate Criminal Enforcement unit didn't believe the story after a drug-sniffing dog found a strong odor of narcotics inside the car.

No drugs were found, and the two men weren't charged with a crime, but officers did keep the money, citing a federal drug assets seizure and forfeiture law.

Deputies first stopped the car for following too closely to another vehicle, said Davidson County Sheriff David Grice.

The two men told officers they had flown from Texas to New Jersey and were driving south to Atlanta to buy a house with the money, Grice said.

Federal investigators arrived and took the cash in order to make a case in federal court that the money would fall under federal forfeiture laws.

If a federal judge agrees with investigators, the Davidson County Sheriff's Office would receive 75 percent ($66,000) of the confiscated money.

"It takes about a year for the money to come back to the county," Grice said.

The money then would make its way into the sheriff's office general fund, where it could only be used for enhancement purposes, such as new equipment or additional training.

Grice said as a general rule the sheriff's office cannot count on forfeiture money, noting the money isn't a sure thing and can fluctuate from year to year.

But the Davidson County Sheriff's Office has had positive results in the past after bringing in $1.6 million in 2005 and $1.4 million in 2004.

This year Grice said officers have brought in about $400,000.

"It allows us to buy equipment without using taxpayers' money," Grice said.

Replacing older vehicles, installing newer radios in patrol cars and installing a new camera system in the jail were all paid for by drug forfeiture money, Grice said.

[robertpaulsen]

There you go.

[dcwusmc]

I don't recall that these guys were pulled over as bank robbery suspects, do you? If so, could you point that out to me, please? Or am I being too insensitive in pointing out your strawman? These folks had THEIR money taken from them, no charges filed, no arrests even made. Only LATER ON, when the sheriff's deputies, who would get to KEEP the money stolen by themselves, participated in some sort of drug task force and conveniently linked the money's actual owners to the druggies. It's way too convenient a co-inkydink for me to swallow at all.

But then, like old LL, you can swallow anything spouting from some LEO.

[tpaine]

Nothing new here folks. -- Governments have been prohibiting 'evil objects' since biblical times, -- they then use the decree as an excuse to search & seize any asset even remotely connected to the 'contraband'..

Statists/communitarian's defend the practice as a needed exercise in socialistic morality.

Rational men see it as a forerunner to revolution.

[tacticalogic]

Posters are acting as though this is some recent government ploy to infringe upon our liberties.

Do you work for the government?

[dcwusmc]

I suspect he does. He's probably some GS-3 (or equivalent) clerk with delusions of adequacy. Maybe his daddy was a WODDIE door-kicker who spanked him once too often.