$12K "tip"

[Racket_Man]

a server tries to "return" a togo box (which she thinks is leftover food) to a customer who tells her to "keep it" and leaves. Box contains $12,000. the server doeds the right thing, calls the cops and turns the money in. now in most places a situation like this will call for the cops to investigate and after a certain amount of time if the money is NOT claimed it can be claimed by the person turning it in

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/20...urant-customer

IN this case, however, the cops seem to get a little "creative" in their "investigation". they claim the money smelled heavily of pot and "testing" showed that the money had traces of "other drugs" on it.

at first they were not, after the proper amount of time passage, going to let the ser5ver claim the money. now after public scrutiny she gets the money

Just a note here: Most of the paper money in the US (about 80% has very minute traces of Cocaine on it). is very dirty and contaminated (both drugs and bateria)

Sited Here and Here

Part of me is thinking that the cops just wanted to totally conficate the money for their own purposes and just "used" the drug traces" bit as a diviersion to disuade the server from trying to legally claim ing the money.

[DrFaroohk]

Yeah I read this earlier, seems like a bunch of crap. They're claiming that money found in close proximity to drugs can be seized as drug money, and since it smells like drugs it is consdiered "in close proximity". Sounds like a bunch of rotten crap. She should get her money plus interest. 100% compounded daily, with the interest coming out of the pockets of every cop who's been fucking her on this.

[crashhelmet]

Back in the early 90s, cops across Florida were stopping people outside of airports and other tourist areas for whatever reason, searching their cars and seizing large amounts of money as "drug money" without charging the drivers. Caused a HUGE scandal that I don't think ever got resolved.

[bainsidhe]

Frankly, how she got the "tip" seems suspicious as hell and it wouldn't surprise me if it's indeed drug money, or burgled money or whatever.

But. Unless the cops have a clear case about where the money came from and how it really was ill-gotten gains from a specific ill-gotten source, then she should've gotten the money after the 60 or 90 days had passed.

[HYHYBT]

Forfeiture laws don't make any sense anyway. Apparently, they're based on the notion that the object itself is guilty of the crime of having been used in an illegal manner, so there's no need to prove that the person they belong to has done anything wrong. Yet, because objects are not (yet) people in other respects, they don't have to prove even that a crime was committed. How the courts have let that stand is simply beyond me.

[draco664]

Forfeiture laws don't make any sense anyway. Apparently, they're based on the notion that the object itself is guilty of the crime of having been used in an illegal manner,

No, they're based on the need to plug the hole in the various budgets of law enforcement agencies.

But public pressure in this case has had an effect. The money has been returned.

[HYHYBT]

They're *used* as widely as they are to plug budgets. But the justification for them, at least for the kind that doesn't require you be found guilty of anything at all, is a legal fiction that the property itself has committed a crime.