Aurora not returning money it seized, despite a court order

Aurora not returning money it seized, despite a court order

www.chicagotribune.com

Jesus Martinez, 27, had $190,040 in his possession when his pickup truck was stopped by an Aurora police officer about 8:30 p.m. Oct. 18 near Indian Trail and Timberlake roads.

The police officer confiscated the cash, and the city has informed Martinez and his brother, Jose, 34, that Aurora will seek to keep it through civil forfeiture, a procedure that allows police agencies to seize property where the legal standard is lower than proof needed in a criminal forfeiture.

(visit the link for the full news article)

This one has to be read in its entirety to be believed...

So now you can get pulled over for NO REASON (no ticket was given in this case) have your property, including large sums of cash SEIZED, again, for no reason ( as no CRIME was committed ) and the Police agencies and feds can basically just KEEP it, "because they say so."

If this does not hammer home the fact that we are living in an absolute POLICE STATE people, nothing will.

They ROBBED this guy of nearly $200,000, and are flat out refusing to give it back!

www.chicagotribune.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Well, is it right..? No, im against the law allowing LE to keep property in any situation because it has been completely abused since its creation.
However, 190k is an awful lot of cash to be carrying around and im willing to bet that they sold a "secret compartment" load of drugs to get that amount of cash but thats just my opinion and the city has no proof, so give the money back ***damn fascists.

Forfeiture laws were designed initially (or claimed to be) in order to combat organized crime operations.

The idea was to just claim that any amount of $$$ over X, automatically is forfeited due to it being "used for organized crime".

However the reality on the ground is entirely different.

These laws are primarily used against common innocent citizens who happen to be carrying a lot of cash, which is not unheard of.

These laws are being used to force people into putting all of their money into banks, which I find disturbing.

The standards for evidence do not even exist in these cases, and so these laws are clearly UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

All forfeiture laws need to be erased.

There needs to be a high standard of evidence before such property seizures can become legitimate.

If they just used it on organized criminals (mafia, drug smugglers, racketeering, etc); than there would not be much of a issue with it.

However they are using this against legal citizens without providing any evidence to prove their case against the person, other than merely the fact the person had a lot of ca$h on hand.

Having money does not prove guilt.

Well, IF having a lot of money proves your guilty, why aren't the big corporate tycoons having their funds confiscated??? Awww double standards for the fail!

The guy and his brother are home builders / modelers. They likely deal with big sums of cash on a regular basis.

And even if this was not the case, neither was ever charged with a crime in this case, nor does either of them even have any record.

The PD basically just seized the cash because they could, and are refusing to give it back (with the assistance now of the federal gov) because they CAN.

This case is a prime example of just how looked down upon the average citizen is by those "in power".

Disgusting.

OMFG.............and he just let them drive off with it??? Im thinking if this guy was honest and it was clean money, the situation out come might have been diffrent???

If Im moving said amount of money and Officer Stadanko comes along and thinks he is going to walk away with it .....

If you or I stole from someone we would be jail birds.

If a city or government steals from someone it's "Tough Luck". Sorry it's ma monez now neiner neiner neiner.

On a side note... Someone's getting one hell of a Christmas bonus this year!!!

It is the time of year for christmas parties and they can be expensive. This story is both sad and extremely frightening at the same time. Guilty til proven innocent and even then you're guilty and broke.

Violation of 4th Amendment Rights.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Read this link Plz!

And how do we define "probable cause"?

In the context of warrants, the Oxford Companion to American Law defines probable cause as "information sufficient to warrant a prudent person's belief that the wanted individual had committed a crime (for an arrest warrant) or that evidence of a crime or contraband would be found in a search (for a search warrant)". "Probable cause" is a stronger standard of evidence than a reasonable suspicion, but weaker than what is required to secure a criminal conviction. Even hearsay can supply probable cause if it is from a reliable source or supported by other evidence, according to the Aguilar–Spinelli test.

link

Obviously, if the state cannot provide evidence that this man was involved in organized criminal actions, they are 100% responsible for returning the money. Evidence HAS to be provided.

Therefore, this is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL and a violation of citizen's rights.

This is scary and as I told my wife on the way to Florida, I hope the hell we don't get stopped. Like others here, I keep a cash amount on hand, "just in case". I like to keep about 10k in cash so as to weather any downturns where the banks are not up and running. To think it could be construed other than hard earned money pisses me off. My drug of choice is halt caf coffee.

This has happened before at airports and other places and will; happen again. The reason people are upset is because the believe that our government should somehow be fair with us.
Remember in Starwars when Qui-Gon won the pod races bet with the parrot dude? Parrot dude did not want to pay so Qui-Gon offered to take the issue up with the Hut, the local cartel in charge. Even though they are a criminal cartel, the did enforce some sort of order so things could operate. Once you understand that what we call 'Government' is more of a resource management cartel, civilians be the resource. What this guy did is dangle a large bag of money in front of the local cartel management agents with predictable results. The took it because they can, it has been this way for a very long time and will most likely continue, so unless you have military power greater than the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA® I suggest you keep your valuables protected from sticky fingers.

Illinios is a tuff state with its laws. Three years ago a friend of ours was boating on the Chain. He had his wife and brother inlaw. When they went to pull the boat, a lake county police officer ran the plates on the truck they were pulling the boat with, and found out the brother inlaw was wanted for an outstanding warrant due to child support. Our friend had (1) beer, didn't even finish the thing. They arrested him for DUI. After ten thousand dollars and alot of headache's they closed the case. He was informed they could have confiscated his boat if they wanted to. He was a truck driver for a living (CDL) He now makes a living as a handy man.
They really let you have it here.
They are money hungry in this state.

if i had that happen in my comunity several unmarked doge chargers would end up getting chopped up for parts in local chop shop.

Keep your money in the banks, they will gamble with it and lose it and there's not a thing you can do

Keep your money with you, tptb will simply take it from you

what a world we live in

If you want a good laugh about the entire scam known as asset forfeiture, read this court case:

U.S.A. vs. $124,700

Thats right, the U.S. brought a court case against a stack of cash.

Cops deserve prison time, preferably the kind of hard time that only guys named Bubba know how to give.

Police need to be made examples of as a deterrent. I cant think of a better way to prevent cops from stealing from citizens than for them to hear tragic cases of their fellow officers being raped in prison after figuratively raping a citizen.