Mooresville Refuses to Return Money After Charges Are Dropped

welcome once again to lato's law here's steve lato there's a case i've been following out of north carolina and this is an update and a lot of stuff has happened along the way but there's at the heart of this a man whose money was taken from him through civil asset forfeiture he went to court and a judge ordered the city to give the man his money back the city said we can't do that we've already given it away to somebody else we gave it to the feds and the judge said if you don't give it back i'm holding you in contempt and that ruling was then appealed and it's been tied up on appeals ever since so people who see my previous video often say why hasn't somebody been thrown in jail yet well i'll explain it along the way but now more interesting news here the man at the center of the case his name is sanders charges have been dropped against sanders but mooresville still hasn't returned money is seized from him so underlying this they were saying look we're taking your money because you're involved in some sort of criminal activity they've dropped the charges against him but they still haven't given the money back they refuse to give the money back and in fact they're appealing the ruling it says they've got to give the money back ben gibson wrote this for statesville.com criminal charges have been dismissed against the man sanders and he's still waiting to have his money returned to him which was seized during the investigation as the civil case now plays out in a north carolina court of appeals his attorney says this is crazy as do most americans it's 17 000 17 000 she says it's very frustrating because he doesn't even have any criminal charges against him now and yet the mooresville police department refuses to give the money back they claim was part of some illegal criminal activity he's been cleared of that it seems like the money should be returned to him but they aren't doing that in fact a court has said the money should be returned to him the charges were dismissed last week the charging officer followed protocol and secured leave from the court date from the da's office the state asked for another court date and the court denied it the state dismissed the charges the civil case is still active mooresville's communications and marketing director kim seller said in an email statement so the criminal charges have been dismissed but moore's still saying but we're still continuing the civil case because the civil case is what's up on appeal because the court has already ruled against them on this matter sanders was carrying 16 761 dollars in cash and it was seized from his car during an investigation last year despite several times being ordered by lower courts to return the money mooresville has said that since it turned the money over the feds they're not responsible for giving it back and again they've been ordered to return the money several times several times i'm going to ask the rhetorical question that someone's going to ask below i hate to take fun out of it for you what would happen to you or i what would happen to you or me if we were ordered by a court to return some money and we just yeah no gave it to somebody else so the attorney says the issue of course goes beyond just her client but to a bigger issue involving police departments and civil forfeiture even after criminal charges are dropped she said until it changes it's a matter of government operating beyond its legal bounds and she said the general public should know that the government through law enforcement is routinely seizing assets of citizens even if the citizens have not been charged with a crime their charges have been dismissed or they're found not guilty and i've said this before most people would say that if you catch a criminal committing a crime and they get convicted of that crime if the police seized the proceeds of that crime during the investigation then the proceeds should be taken from the criminal and possibly given to the victims or you know forfeited but here they've dropped the charges against the man so what criminal activity are you alleging while the case plays out in the court of appeals the attorney said action is taking place in federal courts to have the money returned so your money is taken by a local police department you go to the local courts the local courts say police department give them the money back they go no we can't we gave the money to somebody else now you're forced to go to federal court and file an action either under a theory of some kind of violation of federal law or because the feds have got your money it's a game of hot potato hot potato that should be an olympic sport november 16th of 2020 a vehicle leased by sanders was searched but according to his attorney he did not give consent to the search but the police department found less than a half ounce of an illicit substance along with sixteen thousand dollars the amount of the substance they found would have made it a misdemeanor if in fact he'd been convicted which he wasn't because charges have been dropped so on nov november 24th district judge deborah brown ordered mooresville to return the money to sanders because the police department couldn't tie the cash to any criminal activity mooresville's attorney argued that the town was not a party to the case and that the case needed to be heard at a higher level appellate court they basically said look we had the money but because we gave the money away we're no longer involved in this and that's a crazy concept because arguably in that topsy-turvy logic if you robbed somebody and gave away the money you stole you could say i'm no longer a part of this transaction the money's gone so in february the judge ruled that the money was fungible meaning it didn't have to be the exact cash shows taken but the city and the police department were responsible for returning the amount it had removed in the vehicle the judge held the town in contempt but no one was jailed despite threats to do so if the money wasn't returned in a timely fashion i don't know that's because the judge doesn't have the fortitude to do it or because the appeals are pending they thought well we gotta wait till appeals work their way out but the point of it being fungible is that if i take money from you and then i get rid of it and you say i want my money back we don't have to go track down the exact money i took there's nothing special about the money i can just cut you a check or hand you cash in the same amount of money and you've been made whole assuming we're talking about just money not collector things or you know rare coins or something so that's what fungible means it doesn't matter if it's this five dollar bill or that five dollar bill they're both five dollar bills the town previously stated that the man sanders and his attorney should file a complaint with the u.s attorney's office which represents the department of homeland security so somehow the department of homeland security is involved in the transaction where the local police took the money from the men the town said in a statement that they plan to file a petition with the court of appeals seeking immediate relief from this ruling the town's police officers lawfully seized the funds at issue here and turned them over at the direction of the department of homeland security as suspected drug proceeds so now the department of homeland security is in charge of drug enforcement which makes you wonder what the dea does i i i'm a little baffled by this statement but this is what they said the us attorney's office complaint filed in federal court seeks forfeiture of these funds and further outlines mr sanders criminal history um which apparently i guess makes him guilty because he's not guilty in this case because the charges are dropped but but apparently he has a criminal history so let's let's go with that the town's police officers acted appropriately in accordance with the law and this will be established both in federal court when the court of appeals reviews these proceedings the town does not plan to comment further the town said in a statement so they're saying they acted appropriately in accordance with the law yet when a judge tells them to do something they won't do it and that's what's always interesting to me is when someone claims to be law abiding i follow the law i'm law abiding and a judge orders you to do something you go no i'm not going to do that i'm going to follow the law what the judge orders you to do is the law that's what judges do so if a court orders you to give the money back give the money back and when the judge says we're gonna hold you in contempt if you don't you should be held in contempt when you didn't now there is apparently a pending matter in the federal courts but in case you are not cynical enough to have figured this out they're fighting over 16 000 fighting over 16 000 change often rounded up to 17 000 in the news coverage it happens but that man has probably spent close to that now in legal fees if he's being charged at a typical hourly rate by an attorney and if not he will overrun that amount by the time he gets through in federal court so state court actions federal court actions going back and forth up on appeal down back forth up over under sideways down doesn't matter the point is that they will run you ragged so they're going to teach you a lesson that next time we seize money from somebody the person's going to look at it and it's not worth pursuing it's economically unfeasible i'll be upside down by the time it's over they take 16 000 from me maybe you pay twenty thousand to get it back and i know people in the audience many of whom are gonna say on principle i would do it and i salute you by the way i do salute you i'm really pointing out to you that is what they're doing that is what they're doing so they're running this man ragged so that by the time he wins he can't even break even and they're doing that to teach people a lesson so it's like next time we take money let us keep it don't don't go to court where pesky judges tell us to give the money back and when we lose we just take it up on appeal and if we're going to lose there we follow federal action no no no just let us keep the money we need that 16 000 more than you do and the man has a criminal history they say doesn't that count for something i i'm sorry to laugh there i don't find the situation funny but it is absurd so you have that so carl send it to me thanks a lot staceville.com published it it's a crazy story and and i can't do the updates every time the story crosses my desk because it keeps getting updated with this happening that having so i'm merely choosing the major mile posts the major events and this is a major event because the charges have been dropped against mr sanders but mooresville still has not returned the money they seized from him statesville.com published it ben gibson wrote it carl sent me thanks a lot and i have to point out because some people have noticed that i have shaved and the reason i shaved is i'm going to run the free press marathon this fall i'm training for it right now anytime i run more than five miles having facial hair is such an uncomfortable thing i realized this couple days ago in the heat you know what's up steve if you shaved you'd be more comfortable so the facial hair experiment is over for now but i appreciate the fact you guys put up with me thank you very much i'll talk to you later bye-bye thank you for watching latos law when the going gets tough upgrade you

Channel: Steve Lehto

Views: 104,082

Rating: 4.9772797 out of 5

Keywords: lemon law, michigan lemon law, lemon law attorney, lemon law lawyer, http://www.lehtoslaw.com, steve lehto

Id: _Crqdq05h-o

Length: 11min 58sec (718 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 18 2021