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Title: The DEA seized her father’s life savings at an airport without alleging any crime occurred, lawsuit says
Source: The Seattle Times
URL Source: https://www.seattletimes.com/nation ... y-crime-occurred-lawsuit-says/
Published: Jan 17, 2020
Author: Justin Jouvenal (The Washington Post)
Post Date: 2020-01-17 10:11:03 by misterwhite
Keywords: None
Views: 8560
Comments: 78

Every dollar Terry Rolin had saved over a lifetime was stacked in a large Tupperware container: $82,373. At 79, he was aging and worried about keeping so much cash on hand, his daughter said, so during one of her visits he asked her to open a joint bank account.

Rebecca Brown was catching a flight home from the Pittsburgh airport early the next day and said she didn’t have time to stop at a bank. She confirmed on a government website that it’s legal to carry any amount of cash on a domestic flight and tucked the money in her carry-on.

But just minutes before departure in late August, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent met her at the busy gate and questioned her about the cash, which showed up on a security scan. He insisted Brown put Rolin on the phone to confirm her story. Brown said Rolin, who is suffering mental decline, was unable to verify some details.

“He just handed me the phone and said, ‘Your stories don’t match,’ ” Brown recalled the agent saying. ” ‘We’re seizing the cash.’ “

Brown said she was never told she or her father were under suspicion of committing any crime and neither has been charged with anything. A search of her bag turned up no drugs or other contraband. Neither she or her father appear to have criminal records that might raise suspicions.

Brown and Rolin filed a federal, class-action lawsuit Wednesday against the DEA, Transportation Security Administration and agency officials, claiming the agencies violate the Constitution’s ban on unlawful search and seizures by taking cash from travelers without probable cause. The lawsuit claims the only criteria the DEA has for seizing cash is if it finds amounts greater than $5,000.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Pennsylvania, seeks the return of Rolin’s money and an injunction against the practice.

Both the DEA and TSA declined to comment on the lawsuit’s allegations.

“We can’t comment on ongoing litigation,” said Katherine Pfaff, a DEA spokeswoman.

“As a matter of policy, TSA does not comment on pending litigation,” TSA spokeswoman Jenny Burke wrote in an email.

Brown said the loss of the savings has prevented Rolin from getting treatment for painful tooth decay and gum disease and kept the family from fixing up his pick-up truck, which is his only means of transportation. Rolin is living on retirement benefits from a job as a railroad engineer.

Brown said her grandparents kept their savings in cash because they lived through the bank runs of the Great Depression, and her father adopted the habit.

“I get they are trying to quash drug distribution, but this is a blatant overreach,” Brown said. “This is a working person, a taxpaying citizen of the United States trying to take care of her elderly parent, and they took the money.”

Dan Alban, a senior attorney for the Virginia-based Institute for Justice, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Brown and Rolin, said the family’s story is not unique.

“This is something that we know is happening all across the United States,” Alban said. “We’ve been contacted by people who have been traveling to buy used cars or buy equipment for their business and had their cash seized.”

The DEA made more than 8,850 seizures worth $539 million in 2017, according to the latest agency statistics for a full year. A 2016 USA Today investigation found DEA agents seized at least $209 million in cash from travelers at the nation’s 15 busiest airports over the previous decade.

Federal law gives the DEA and other law enforcement agencies power to seize cash and property linked to drug and criminal activity, a process known as civil asset forfeiture.

The agencies say it is an important tool to undermine the financial viability of criminal networks, deprive organizations of illicit proceeds and confiscate property like cars and houses that might be used to carry out or harbor crime.

But the practice has come under increased scrutiny in recent years. Critics argue local police departments and federal agencies have used asset forfeiture as a cash cow to fatten budgets. In the DEA’s case, the agency feeds seized assets into a Justice Department fund that disburses the money to agencies and victims of crime.

A 2017 review by the Justice Department inspector general found only 44 of 100 seizures by the DEA were related to an ongoing investigation or resulted in a new investigation, arrest or prosecution. Most of the seizures occurred at transportation facilities like airports or bus stations.

The Supreme Court limited the power of local state agencies to seize property in an important ruling last year.

The DEA seized her father’s life savings at an airport without alleging any crime occurred, lawsuit says

Brown said she initially encountered issues when going through the TSA security checkpoint at Pittsburgh International Airport on Aug. 26. Brown was flying to Boston, where she lives outside the city.

A TSA screener noticed the cash in Brown’s carry-on during a scan and pulled her aside for questioning, Brown said. The screener asked what the money was for, photocopied her ID and travel documents and held her luggage until a Pennsylvania state trooper arrived. The lawsuit claims the TSA exceeded its authority in holding Brown’s bag.

Brown said she repeated the explanation that the money was her father’s life savings to the trooper and then retold it to his superior.

Finally, she said she was allowed to proceed to the gate, where she was met by the DEA agent.

Brown said it was humiliating to be questioned by the agent in front of other travelers at the gate. When he seized the money, she said he put it into a plastic bag and told her someone would be in touch with her.

Brown said she stumbled onto her flight in shock as the doors were closing. She didn’t have time to fully explain to her father what had happened before takeoff, and he left seven frantic messages while they were in flight. In October, she received a notice that the DEA planned to permanently seize the cash, citing its authority to make such moves to combat crime.

“I was shaking the entire time,” Brown said of the flight. “I was embarrassed. I was afraid.”

– – –

The Washington Post’s Alice Crites contributed to this report.

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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 21.

#12. To: misterwhite, A K A Stone, Vicomte13 (#0)

The original article was in the Washington Post, dated 15 Jan 2020.

The seizure occurred in August of last year.

The Class Action Complaint was filed 15 Jan 2020.

As a practical matter, the case may turn on whether the story being told is believable or not. As a matter of curiosity, I note no information about the bills themselves. If they were acquired monthly since 1994 as claimed, then the dates on the bills should reflect that. Complicating that is the alleged commingling of all the bills the day prior to seizure. Still, there should be a sizable quantity of bills dated before 2000.

The case is:

Rebecca Brown et al v DEA et al, 2:20-cv-00064-LPL, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

Rebecca Brown is the first named Plaintiff. August Terrence Rolin is the second named Plaintiff.

The cash was seized by the DEA, not the TSA.

Document #1:

COMPLAINT against UTTAM DHILLON, DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION, "STEVE" LAST NAME UNKOWN, DAVID P. PEKOSKE,TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINSTRATION, UNITED STATES OFAMERICA (Filing fee, including Administrative fee, $400, receipt number0315-5428120), filed by AUGUST TERRENCE ROLIN, REBECCA BROWN.

BROWN et al v. DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINSTRATION et al
Assigned to: Magistrate Judge Lisa Pupo Lenihan
Cause: 05:0701 Maritime Subsidy Board

Date Filed: 01/15/2020
Jury Demand: Plaintiff
Nature of Suit: 440 Civil Rights: Other
Jurisdiction: U.S. Government Defendant

Only 20% of forfeitures result in any claim for the assets. 39% of said 20% of claims resulted in full or partial return of seized assets. Approximately 8% of total seizures resulted in full or partial return of assets.

80% of asset forfeitures result in nobody claiming to be the owner of the assets.

COMPLAINT

Factual Allegations

A. Terry and his family stored cash in their family home.

71. Terry is 79 years old and lives in Morgan, Pennsylvania.

72. Terry grew up in a mining community southwest of Pittsburgh, where his parents purchased the family home in South Fayette, Pennsylvania, in the 1920s with money earned from his father’s mining wages.

73. After graduating from college in the 1960s, Terry worked for a railroad company until workplace knee and shoulder injuries forced him to retire in 1994. Since 1994, Terry has been receiving Railroad Retirement benefits.

74. In 2005, after his wife passed away, Terry moved back into the family home with his mother.

75. When his mother passed away in 2006, Terry purchased the family home from his other family members and continued living there.

76. Terry’s parents lived through the Great Depression, so instead of keeping most of their money in bank accounts, they had a habit of storing cash in envelopes hidden throughout the family home, particularly in the unfinished basement.

77. Terry adopted this same habit long ago, and after moving back into the family home, he continued to store cash there.

78. Each month since his retirement, Terry receives about $2,700 in Railroad Retirement payments deposited into his PNC bank account.

79. Terry regularly withdrew a portion of his Railroad Retirement payments from the bank and stored the cash in the family home, stuffed into envelopes. Generally, these envelopes of cash were stored in spaces between the walls and rafters in the unfinished basement.

80. Envelopes of cash hidden by Terry’s mother were also still in the family home at the time of her passing.

81. Over the years, between envelopes of cash stashed away by Terry and his mother, tens of thousands of dollars accumulated within the walls of the family home.

82. In 2018, Terry and Rebecca decided that with Terry’s progressing age and declining health, the family home was too much for him to maintain.

83. Terry sold the longtime family home in November 2018, and moved into a small apartment located in Morgan, Pennsylvania. He still lives in the apartment.

84. In the course of Terry’s move, the cash stored in the family home was placed into various moving boxes, dispersed somewhat sporadically throughout Terry’s belongings as more envelopes of cash turned up in the crevices of the family home.

85. Because of his health problems, Terry took months to slowly unpack his belongings in his new apartment. While unpacking, he would periodically find the envelopes of cash. He eventually stored all of the cash in one large tupperware container in the apartment.

86. Terry continues to occasionally store cash in his new apartment.

B. Terry entrusted the stored cash with his daughter, Rebecca.

87. After a substantial amount of cash accumulated in the tupperware container, Terry became concerned about the security of his family’s life savings. To better safeguard his family’s life savings, Terry asked his family for help.

88. In August 2019, Terry’s daughter, Rebecca, who lives in Massachusetts, flew to Pittsburgh for the weekend for her brother’s wedding reception and to visit with Terry.

89. Rebecca, who works full time, was only in town for the weekend; she arrived on Friday, August 23, 2019, and departed early on the morning of Monday, August 26, 2019.

90. Terry decided that he should give Rebecca power of attorney so that she could help care for him.

91. Terry and Rebecca also decided the best course of action would be to deposit the cash into a new joint bank account shared with Rebecca so that she could help him use the money to pay for his much-needed dental care and to fix his truck, among other health care needs and projects.

92. Terry and Rebecca would have joint ownership of and access to the new bank account, but the primary purpose of the account would be to help with Terry’s health care and other expenses.

93. Terry and Rebecca only finalized their plan for the cash on Saturday after the banks had closed, and Rebecca was not able to take physical possession of the cash until Sunday night.

94. There was no time for Rebecca to deposit the cash in a bank before her flight left on Monday morning, so she planned to take it with her and deposit it in the new bank account after she arrived back home in Massachusetts.

95. Rebecca was excited to use the funds to improve her aging and ailing father’s quality of life. Some of the money was immediately earmarked for urgent dental care—namely replacing Terry’s teeth and caring for his gum disease—and for fixing Terry’s old truck, which is his primary mode of transportation and is badly in need of repairs.

96. With Terry’s consent, some of the money was also earmarked to pay off a tax debt Rebecca owes the IRS.

97. Rebecca and one of her brothers also decided to give their father something his life was lacking: a hobby. They planned to use some of the money to buy Terry an old hobby truck to repair and tinker with.

98. Rebecca’s brother found a 1972 Chevrolet C10 Stepside for sale online that Rebecca was going to look at the following weekend. They were excited to give their father a hobby to keep him engaged and occupied in his later years.

99. Terry did not know that his children were planning to buy him a hobby truck as a surprise.

- - - - - - - - - -

D. DEA seized Terry’s and Rebecca’s cash.

127. But Rebecca was soon approached at the gate by the same state trooper who questioned her earlier, this time accompanied by another man in a blue polo shirt.

128. The man in the blue polo said his name was Steve, that he was a DEA agent, and that he had some questions for her.

129. Rebecca felt like she had no choice but to comply with his demands.

130. The two men escorted Rebecca to a less crowded part of the gate area to question her.

131. Rebecca did not feel free to leave. She also needed to remain near the gate in order to board her flight.

132. Steve asked Rebecca to show him the cash in the purse in her carry-on luggage. Rebecca felt like she had no choice but to comply with his demands and showed him the cash.

133. Upon information and belief, Steve decided to seize the cash as soon as he saw the amount, pursuant to DEA’s policy or practice of seizing currency totaling more than $5,000 when found in the possession of travelers at airports regardless of whether there is probable cause for the seizure.

134. Steve then questioned Rebecca about why she was traveling with the cash. For the fourth time, Rebecca explained the origins of the cash and why she was traveling with it.

135. After hearing Rebecca’s explanation, Steve asked to speak with Terry to verify what she had just told him.

136. Rebecca informed Steve that her father was elderly, would still be asleep at 7:00 a.m., and would likely be confused by the call, but Steve insisted that she call Terry so that Steve could talk to him.

137. Terry has age-related memory and cognitive issues, and he typically sleeps until late morning or noon. Terry was woken up by the phone call and was groggy, confused, and upset when he answered the phone.

138. Terry also did not know that his children were planning to buy him a surprise hobby truck, so he could not corroborate those facts.

139. For these reasons—Terry being awoken several hours early; Terry’s cognitive issues; and Terry being unaware of Rebecca’s planned surprise—Terry had difficulty answering all of Steve’s questions.

140. After speaking with Terry, Steve told Rebecca that “your answers don’t match.”

141. Steve then took the cash and searched the rest of Rebecca’s beach bag.

142. Steve seized all of Terry’s and Rebecca’s cash, totaling $82,373 in U.S. currency.

143. Rebecca was not arrested or charged with any crime, and was finally permitted to board her flight to Boston, deeply embarrassed by her fellow passengers and other onlookers staring at her during this entire encounter because it appeared she had done something wrong or illegal.

144. Rebecca was the last passenger to board her flight and was not able to call her father before her flight departed. When she landed, she had several missed calls and voicemails from her distraught father, who did not know what was happening to his daughter or where she may have been taken.

145. Terry and Rebecca have been unable to recover their money for more than four months.

146. Terry and Rebecca received CAFRA notices for the entire $82,373 dated October 11, 2019, from DEA indicating DEA’s intention to permanently keep their cash through civil forfeiture.

147. Upon information and belief, Terry’s and Rebecca’s cash was seized and is being forfeited without any articulable reasonable suspicion or probable cause.

148. Upon information and belief, at the time of the seizure, neither Terry nor Rebecca was under investigation for any criminal activity.

149. Neither Terry nor Rebecca has been arrested for or charged with any crime related to or arising from any circumstances surrounding the seizure of their cash.

150. It is not a crime to travel with any amount of currency, and there are no legal requirements to report to the government that one is traveling domestically with any amount of currency.

- - - - - - - - - -

282. Plaintiffs bring this claim on behalf of themselves and the DEA Class under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(2) for declaratory and injunctive relief against DEA, DEA Acting Administrator Dhillon in his official capacity, and the United States of America for violation of their Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

283. It is legal to travel with any amount of currency, and there are no legal requirements to report to the government that one is traveling domestically with any amount of currency.

284. An air traveler’s possession of any amount of currency, by itself, is not suspicious or indicative of criminal activity; it does not give rise to reasonable suspicion or probable cause.

285. DEA follows a policy or practice of seizing currency from travelers at U.S. airports without probable cause based solely on the presence of the currency itself.

286. DEA follows a policy or practice of seizing currency from travelers at U.S. airports based on the presence of a threshold amount of currency that DEA considers “suspicious,” regardless of whether there is probable cause for the seizure.

287. DEA follows a policy or practice of seizing currency from travelers at U.S. airports based solely on whether they have at least $5,000 in currency, regardless of whether there is probable cause for the seizure.

288. DEA’s policy or practice violates the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

289. Pursuant to this unconstitutional policy or practice, DEA seized Terry’s and Rebecca’s cash without probable cause.

290. As a direct and proximate result of DEA’s policy or practice, the Named Plaintiffs and other members of the DEA Class have suffered or will suffer the same injury, including the deprivation of their constitutional rights and the deprivation and/or loss of their currency.

291. DEA’s unconstitutional policy or practice affects every member of the DEA Class—i.e., every instance in which DEA seizes currency from a traveler at a U.S. airport because they were or are traveling with at least $5,000 in currency, regardless of whether there is probable cause for the seizure.

292. Therefore, class-wide declaratory and injunctive relief is necessary to remedy DEA’s unlawful policy or practice, which will otherwise continue.

nolu chan  posted on  2020-01-17   18:12:41 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#13. To: nolu chan (#12)

Approximately 8% of total seizures resulted in full or partial return of assets.

Meaning 92% of asset forfeitures were legitimately based on suspicious items/money that couldn't be explained legally.

misterwhite  posted on  2020-01-18   11:17:52 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#14. To: misterwhite (#13)

Meaning 92% of asset forfeitures were legitimately based on suspicious items/money that couldn't be explained legally.

No it means that 92 percent of the people got ripped off and didn't know how to get a lawyer or didn't have the funds to hire one to get their money back.

A K A Stone  posted on  2020-01-18   11:26:45 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#21. To: A K A Stone (#14)

No it means that 92 percent of the people got ripped off and didn't know how to get a lawyer or didn't have the funds to hire one to get their money back.

Under CAFRA, the federal government will reimburse your legal expenses and will return your money with interest. Assuming you can prove you obtained it legally. Which 92% couldn't do.

misterwhite  posted on  2020-01-18   12:33:43 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


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