Judging Freedom - Marine sues DEA after they seized his life savings

Episode Date: December 13, 2021

Judge Napolitano interviews Stephen Lara, a Marine from Texas, who sued the DEA to get back the $87,000 the agency seized from him in February. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello there, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here on Judging Freedom, my new podcast where I get to say what I think, think what I want, and interview some very fascinating people, usually people I agree with, and today is no exception to that. What a story we have for you, and I won't steal any of the thunder, but this is a story of the American government, the federal government, and a state government absolutely abusing the rights of a citizen, and not just any citizen, but a 17-year career member of the United States Marine Corps, peacefully and lawfully driving through the desert in Nevada, and you won't believe what happened to him. Stephen Lara, Stephen, welcome here. Ben Field, who is your lawyer from the

Institute for Justice, welcome here. Stephen, in about a minute or or two tell us what happened to you when you were driving on that highway in nevada yes well first and foremost thank you for having me on your show you know i was heading up to reno devata to spend uh my daughters from lowell texas and unfortunately i was pulled over uh while traveling through and um unbeknown to me, I was pulled over. I had no idea what I was being cited for. I thought maybe there might have been a discrepancy with the rental car that I was in. It was necessary to get a rental car. Unfortunately, I was having some car trouble, and it was a last-minute decision.

And when being pulled over, I was asked to get out of the vehicle. I was asked a series of questions, and it just became very, very bizarre from that point on. I wanted to be totally compliant just to make sure that I could answer the officer's questions and be on my way to see my children, didn't think anything of it. One thing led to another and um you know i was asked a series of questions and um the questions that he asked you did they have they weren't about your your driving they were about you and what you might have in the car right yes sir as a matter of fact he applauded my driving which i thought was quite odd yeah what what did you have in the car

that piqued his interest and eventually led to the lawsuit that Ben filed for you? Yes, I had my life savings, $87,000 and receipts to accompany those monies. So you had $87,000 in cash and you had proof that it was yours. And because you wanted to work with law enforcement, as military and ex-military often do, you told them about this cash. And then what happened? I did. And, you know, I told them that, you know, I had these receipts to accompany my monies and asked them to make some phone calls to the bank. They refused to do that and proceeded to get a drug dog out there to basically look over the vehicle. I told them there was not anything illegal in the vehicle. And after going through the monies, going through the receipts, they then took my monies out to the bushes there and put the dog on it.

So they took a plastic bag, what a lot of people call a baggie, like a sandwich bag. And it had almost $90,000 in cash in it. And they hurled it into a field in the desert. And then they unleashed the dog or they didn't unleash the dog they let the dog lead them to the money that is correct yes sir and what happened then and uh you know as soon as uh they brought the dog back you know i'm talking with one of the officers they told me that they were going to seize my monies and i was just absolutely dumbfounded that um they were going to do this monies. And I was just absolutely dumbfounded that they

were going to do this because I didn't know. I mean, I didn't know how a simple traffic stop was going to lead them taking my property. I mean, it was just absolutely bizarre. And you begged them not to do it because there you were in the middle of the desert going to your children or attempting to go to your children with no means, no money to spend in order to get there or no money to spend on them when you got there. Absolutely. You know, I informed them that I only had a few dollars left in my jacket and all the monies that they were taking was, you know, is going to cause a hardship for me and my children. I had no way of providing for them. I had no way of...

Do you know if the... I'll get to you in a second, Ben. Do you know if the feds were involved? You were stopped by what appears to be a sheriff's officer or what in the Northeast we call a state trooper. But he wasn't a federal official. But did some fed get involved in this yeah you know uh i was stopped by nevada highway patrol and i was told that the dea was going to be

a part of this process and i was given a receipt to contact a dea agent upon my release all right so they let you go yes sir that with a pink piece of paper and they took your cash. Send me on my way. Did they charge you with any motor vehicle violation, any infraction, any violation of any statute state or federal? No, sir.

I wasn't even given a, I wasn't even given a warning. Right. I wasn't given a ticket. I was just sent on my way after they took my cash. All right, Ben, take it from here. When the state seizes money, why do they turn it over to the feds? Yeah, so this is unfortunately a very, very common occurrence that most people don't know about. So lots of states, including Nevada, have protections for people like Stephen that the federal government doesn't have.

So, for instance, in Nevada, the government would have to prove by clear and convincing evidence that Stephen was involved in some criminal activity. The feds don't require that. And so what state officers often do to circumvent their own state's laws is they will hand money over to a federal agency. It's called an adoption. And then the federal agency, using federal resources, takes the money, forfeits it. They place then the burden of proof on the innocent person, Stephen in this case, to prove that the money wasn't connected to any illegal activity. Okay, let me stop you. Did you say they call this adoption? Yes. I mean, this has got to be the height of euphemisms. They've stolen $90,000 from your client illegally, illegally under the state law, the state that employs them. They then give it to the feds and because it's not illegal under federal law and that's called an adoption yes and then

the worst part is the feds if they're successful kick back 80 up to 80 of the money to the state agency that gave them to it so it really is cops acting on commission here so so the state has an interest in seizing money and circumventing its state's laws. I live in and am coming to you from New Jersey, where we have a similar law to Nevada. It would be absolutely unlawful for a local county or state policeman to seize that money. They'd have to charge you with a crime first and then prove by clear and convincing evidence that you committed the crime and used the cash as part of it as the proceeds of the crime so they do this in order a to evade their own law b to enrich their own police department that's exactly right in many states including

nevada put protections in place so that the agency if it it takes money, doesn't get to keep it. So, for instance, Nevada, if an agency keeps above a certain amount of money, it has to go to the schools. But if they go to the federal process, they completely circumvent that. I went to law school long before you did, but I remember an old Ohio case before the Warren Supreme Court in which the cash from traffic tickets was going to the court, not to the judge personally, but to the court's budget. apparatus of law enforcement, whether it's the judiciary or law enforcement itself, cannot enjoy a benefit from the proceeds of law enforcement. But I guess we've gotten a long way from that. How did this end, Stephen? Did you ever get the money back? We know that Ben sued in federal court. I guess you sued the DEA and the state in federal court, Ben, correct me. So we sued both the DEA in federal court to demand the return of Stephen's money because

the federal government hadn't followed the procedure that it is required to in order to forfeit money. And we also sued the Nevada Highway Patrol and state court to stop this from happening from people in the future and to get compensation for the damages that Stephen suffered. Okay, Stephen, did you get the money back? Yes, sir, I did. Was it the very same cash or did they just give you a check? No, it was not the very same cash. It was a check that I received. And you wouldn't have gotten that money back had you not run into somebody like Ben who works for the Institute for Justice who defends little guys when the government tramples their civil liberties. That's absolutely right. You know, this whole, this was God sent that I was even, you know,

afforded the opportunity to be represented by the Institute for Justice because people like myself do not understand that there are timely requirements and very specific things that they have to file because all you're given is a number to a DEA agent. By the way, did you ever call that number? I did. And did you talk to the same DEA agent to whom the troopers spoke with on the side of the road oh you mean shane they referred him as shane first yes yes i talked to to shane moray and what conceivable justification did he give you for telling those troopers to seize the money and bring it to him he never explained to me how or why it was done but he was just questioning me and making me feel like a criminal i you know all

those questions were just making me feel like i had done something wrong and it was more or less just get information out of me just to i it was just absolutely absurd the questions that he was me. Ben, why is using a dog sniffing money for the aroma or odor of cocaine and nothing more an insufficient basis either to seize the money or to commence a prosecution or even to charge anybody? Two principal reasons, Judge. The first is just that we know from the video that it was entirely pretextual the officers had already told each other that they were planning to seize the money and they were just trying to come up with a reason so it wasn't the real reason that they seized it but second almost all united states currency has trace amounts of drugs and so a dog is almost always going to alert on currency. And we know that there

wasn't any real reason for the seizure here because the day after we filed the lawsuit and the Washington Post called the government to ask for comment, they acknowledged that they didn't have any basis to keep the money. And they said that they were going to be returning it. How long did it take between the seizure and the return, Ben? So Stephen's money was seized in February. It wasn't until we filed a lawsuit at the end of August that the government even said anything to Stephen after the fact. Wow.

Tell us about the state lawsuit, the one that's still there. The federal lawsuit's been dismissed, I assume, because you got the money. That's correct. So tell us about the state lawsuit. He's entitled to compensation just for what they did to him. And the state needs to be taught a lesson that it has to follow its own laws. It can't use a federal loophole. Absolutely.

So the state lawsuit is ongoing. As you know, litigation like this takes a long time. So we're still waiting for the state to respond to the lawsuit. But, yes, as you said, Stephen is entitled to compensation. He had to figure out how to get to California and back without money. He deserves to be compensated for that trouble he suffered. And most importantly, Stephen is looking out for everybody else who's in a similar situation and wants the Nevada courts to say that the Nevada Highway Patrol and other state officials cannot do this to anybody else. Stephen, how did your day end? Did you make it to your daughters? Thankfully, I did. And, you know, I had to make the most of

that weekend. It was, they definitely made up for what had happened to me. I was very thankful to see them. It was tough. Ben, you and I and the good folks that you work with are of the view that all of these seizures are unconstitutional, that the Fifth Amendment and the 14th Amendment protect property and require due process, a trial at which the government proves either fault or guilt before it can seize anything. But yet this stuff keeps going on, doesn't it? Absolutely. It's a terrible travesty. And one of the things that most people don't understand that is truly the worst is that most seizures are for just a few hundred dollars.

So you can't even with that, it's not even worth it to fight. And so you just have the government breaking up billions of dollars a year, taking people's money without ever giving them any profits. Ben, if you could say anything to those who have had money seized, or if you could say anything to the troopers who seized it from you, what would you say? Stephen? Stephen. And I only hope and pray that this stops happening to people from this point forward because this is absolutely ruining lives. And this is a travesty. And they knew when they did this to you, you were a career Marine.

It did. And, you know, I don't think of myself as any more important than anybody else. But I tell you what, you know, I'm a human being. And, you know, I have responsibilities to take care of my family. And when you take those tools away from me so that I can take care of my daughters and just leave me stranded on the side of the road, if you can do that to me,

I can't imagine what's been done to people before me that haven't had the opportunity to come forth and tell my story. It's just, it's heartbreaking. Stephen Lauer, Ben Field, thank you very much for joining us. Come back when that state case has been resolved in your favor, and we'll discuss it again.