Posted on 05/01/2014 8:50:48 AM PDT by bkopto
Iowa City police seized $48,000 in cash from a Minnesota couple during a traffic stop in March. They want it back – but that’s been proving difficult, the Iowa City Press-Citizen reports.
The publication says Kearnice C. Overton, of St. Paul, was pulled over March 16 for speeding. Overton’s kids were in the car at the time. Police say a K-9 signal gave them the authority to search the car, the Press-Citizen reports. So they did, found the $48,000 in cash, and seized it.
Overton says he got the money from his wife, Tiffani D.S. Barber, to buy some property in Iowa; he drove down there, the deal fell through so he was on his way home. Barber and Overton filed a petition stating the money was wrongly seized – no charges were filed, Overton was not arrested, and he claims it wasn’t illegally earned – and they want it back, the Press-Citizen reports.
But things have become more complicated: The Press-Citizen now reports the cash is part of a federal investigation.
According to the paper, court documents filed Monday show the money is no longer being held by Iowa authorities – but the files offer no details on what the federal investigation is about.
The Press-Citizen notes a hearing regarding the seized cash is still set for May 6.
A similar story of police seizure turned out well for a Moorhead woman.
WCCO reported on a tip received by waitress Stacy Knutson back in 2012 – rolls of cash, left in a box at a table she was serving, totaling $12,000.
The mother of five called police to notify them, the station reported; police said they’d hold it for 90 days in case it was claimed. But when Knutson tried to get it back, she was told it was now being held as drug money.
In April, Knutson’s attorney said Moorhead police had agreed to give back the entire sum, the station reported. Last year, The New Yorker published a lengthy piece about civil forfeiture and its increased use across the country.
Seizing illicitly-gained money can be appealing, the publication noted, because it can oftentimes be used right away by law enforcement to help combat crime.
“In Tulsa, Oklahoma, cops drive a Cadillac Escalade stenciled with the words ‘This Used To Be a Drug Dealer’s Car, Now It’s Ours!”” the piece said. “In Monroe, North Carolina, police recently proposed using forty-four thousand dollars in confiscated drug money to buy a surveillance drone … “
And unlike a criminal forfeiture, which can only happen if a person is convicted, a civil forfeiture can occur even if you haven’t been found guilty.
The K-9 knew what to do and knew what would happen if he failed!
Gee, I didn’t know dogs could smell money.
“Police say a K-9 signal gave them the authority to search the car”
How does a court or jury verify that this happened and that it’s true?
Use a cashiers check, as you say most large bills have coke traces. If you want to deal in large amounts of cash have the person you are dealing with come to you.
All your everything belong to us. Guilty until proven guilty. I don’t trust the government especially their gangster thugs in a uniform. They can kill you andteal all your property and you can’t do a thing about it. And if there are “good” cops out there. I don’t trust them one bit either.
how about cocaine on the money
Guess you didn't bother to read the whole story. Short attention span? Only read headlines?
Rather than make baseless accusations and then follow up with stupid questions, suppose you make a rational argument as to why you disagree with me
Since the deal that fell through AND the alleged police stop both happened in Iowa, how do we know this wasn’t a setup from the get go. Get out-of-staters to drive down on a cash only deal, raise the price so the deal gets called off. Then use you LEO buddies to grab all the cash before they leave the county or state.
??
Just saying.
I drive a lot. I’ve driven in pretty much every state and most of them because I drove to the state. I’ve been ticketed in a lot of states but usually I get off.
But most of the stops were around my hometown for 45 years, Seattle. I’ve been in KY for three years now and I have noticed a stark difference. When in Seattle area, if I was behind the wheel I was looking for cops. The number of radar traps, etc. I passed is truly amazing. Four a year is nothing compared to how many times I could have potentially been pulled over.
Now I’ve been in KY for three years. Except when driving down a particular two mile stretch of road I rarely see, I don’t even think about cops. I’ve been pulled over twice, neither led to a ticket. The first, the cop thought I was drunk because I slightly jerked the wheel when I misunderstood a road sign. I still had my washington plates on the car and it was in a county that is hyper agressive about drunk drivers. the second, I blew through a stop sign in front of the cop. It wasn’t the least bit dangerous, but it was illegal. He checked my papers and told me to be more careful in the future. Considering I was in my FR-S I thougt he’d ticket me just for that.
I’m an “assertive” driver that sometimes slips into agressive, but I seriously love to drive. It’s why my 125 mile round trip commute is still fun, though I only drift occasionally these days.
How does a court or jury verify that this happened and that it’s true?
EXACTLY! There was a time, long ago and far away, that your local PD, might have been given the benefit of the doubt. Today, NO MORE. Courts should rule that K9s cannot be used to initiate seaches, but I've lost faith in courts to uphold civil rights.
The leftist termites have burrowed their way into so many aspects of governance that the whole system is tottering, on the edge of collapse.
The ‘word’ of a DOG should NEVER be considered ‘probable cause’...NEVER! Too many lives are being ruined by ‘sniffer dogs’.
F’ing thieves.
An old girlfriend’s son went to TX to do a two week job and was paid $3000 cash.
He got stopped at 2:00am on his way back home in some podunk TX county and the sheriff’s dept pulled the same stunt and threw him in jail for drug trafficking.
His mom had to wire an attorney $15,000 retainer to handle the case and the charges were dropped the next day. The same attorney didn’t do jack squat to get the seized $3000 back.
Makes me wonder if the Sheriff and Attorney are not in cohoots to split the money on these out of state suckers who make the mistake of driving through their county.
Well, they were stupid to be caught speeding with this amount of cash in their car...
Where you live and drive makes a lot of difference.
I drive one highway that is a 100 mile long speed trap.
It is legal, but still foolhardy. Apart from the possible loss from a break-in to the car, the conveyance of such large amounts of cash immediately suggests either tax evasion or drug trade to an LEO.
Maybe there were some fumes from the Constitution that allowed this?
The judge is on the side of the cops, so they let the cops say it's true.
OTOH, the it's the jury's job to judge the facts, the laws and the application of the laws.
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