22-year-old Michigan native Joseph Rivers was L.A.-bound, in pursuit of his dream of becoming a music video producer. He left home with everything he had–$16,000 in cash, his whole life savings plus gifts from relatives who believed in him.
But at the Albuquerque Amtrak station, the DEA seized all$16,000–and never charged him with a crime.
Under civil asset forfeiture law, they don’t have to. Police must merely suspect the money was somehow connected to a crime. And in most cases, they get to keep the profits to pad their budgets.
“We don’t have to prove that the person is guilty,” the DEA told the Albuquerque Journal. “It’s that the money is presumed to be guilty.”
From the Journal’s report:
Rivers was the only passenger singled out for a search by DEA agents – and the only black person on his portion of the train, Pancer said.
In one of the bags, the agent found the cash, still in the Michigan bank envelope.
“I even allowed him to call my mother, a military veteran and (hospital) coordinator, to corroborate my story,” Rivers said. “Even with all of this, the officers decided to take my money because he stated that he believed that the money was involved in some type of narcotic activity.”
Rivers had opted to carry cash because he worried he might have troubles making large withdrawals from out-of-state banks.
“These officers took everything that I had worked so hard to save and even money that was given to me by family that believed in me,” Rivers said. “I told (the DEA agents) I had no money and no means to survive in Los Angeles if they took my money. They informed me that it was my responsibility to figure out how I was going to do that.”
All his money confiscated, Rivers was only able to get home thanks to the generosity of another passenger who witnessed what had happened.
The episode comes just after New Mexico passed historic legislation to ban cops from making these types of seizures. It has not yet gone into effect.
According to the Washington Post, whose recent investigative series shed light on rampant abuse of civil seizure across the country, DEA agents have already seized over $38 million dollars’ worth of cash and valuables since the start of the year.
The Post has uncovered many stories likes Rivers’–in 2012, police seized $17,550 from a 35-year-old African American business owner after he committed a minor traffic violation. It took a court case to get the money back.
