The fight over various local, state and federal forfeiture programs, where cops or government bureaucrats simply take a person’s assets or cash, has been going on for several years now.
In many cases such sanctioned theft programs are being abandoned or even struck down by the courts.
Now one more is in the bull’s-eye: a scheme in the state of Nevada through which highway patrol officers simply take money when they find travelers have it.
The fight is being waged by the Institute for Justice on behalf of victim Stephen Lara.
He’s already won the battle, as the Drug Enforcement Administration, which wound up with his confiscated “life savings,” returned the money the day after he filed a lawsuit.
But now he’s going after the Nevada procedures, and officers, who absconded with his backpack filled with money.
The latest action in the case is that the 2nd Judicial District Court for the state of Nevada denied the state’s motion to dismiss the complaint by the Marine veteran.
The “decision means Stephen Lara, represented by the Institute for Justice, can continue his legal challenge to the state’s forfeiture scheme, which allows police to take people’s property without showing that they committed a crime.”
“The court’s ruling is a major first step toward justice for Stephen and all victims of unjust civil forfeiture laws,” said IJ Attorney Ben Field. “If the government wants to take your money or property, it should first have to prove you did something wrong. Nevada law enforcement should have to follow the Nevada Constitution.”
It was in 2021 when highway patrol officers pulled him over while he was driving through the state, en route to visit his daughters in California.
“The officers who pulled him over never alleged he did anything wrong, and Stephen cooperated throughout the ordeal. However, using civil forfeiture, the officers were able to detain Stephen for more than an hour and take his life savings from him,” the IJ reported.
They left him “penniless on the side of the highway,” without even money to buy gas to continue his trip, the IJ documented.
The Nevada Highway Patrol then sent the money to the DEA under “equitable sharing,” “with the expectation that the DEA would circumvent Nevada law to forfeit the money using more government-friendly federal law and then kick back the lion’s share for the NHP to use however it wanted.”
A lawsuit followed and the DEA coughed up the money within a day, and while the claims against the federal agency now are moot, the ruling means a court will have to hold proceedings to determine if Nevada is in violation of laws regarding civil forfeiture, why officers simply take money when it’s cash even though carrying money is not illegal, and the process to provide justice to victims of such state plans.
The IJ explained, “Stephen Lara did everything right. He served his country in the Marines for over 16 years, including tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is devoted to his two daughters and has been saving to buy a house where they can live with him. But his plans came crashing down in the winter of 2021, when the Nevada Highway Patrol seized his life savings. The officers knew they had no evidence of any crime, but they took Stephen’s money anyway to hand over to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), in the anticipation that the federal agency could take Stephen’s money and kick back a portion of the proceeds to the Highway Patrol through a program called ‘equitable sharing.'”
The IJ charges that the highway patrol “engineered a reason to pull him over.”
IMPORTANT NOTE TO WND READERS: For America’s ruling elites, nothing is more precious, wonderful and life-giving to their great cause than the Jan. 6, 2021 “insurrection” at the U.S. Capitol. It’s irrelevant that the events didn’t come remotely close to constituting an actual “insurrection,” or that both police and over 200 undercover FBI assets provoked the riot – which Tucker Carlson calls a “set-up.” Yet Vice President Kamala Harris still insists the minor riot was just as horrific as the 9/11 terror attacks and Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
WHY are the elites doing this?
It’s not just because convicting, imprisoning, torturing and destroying the lives of hundreds of Trump supporters is meant to terrify and intimidate millions of Americans into submission. And it’s not just because activist judges and bureaucrats in over 30 states are absurdly trying to keep Trump off their state’s election ballots by citing the 14th Amendment’s prohibition against anyone who “engaged in insurrection” from holding elective office.
It’s because the elites’ destruction of America is so rapid, horrendous and obvious that they feel compelled to turn their opponents into monsters – or lose power at the next election. But that doesn’t mean just calling conservatives and Christians “racists,” “white supremacists,” “radical extremists” and “domestic terrorists” as they do continually. They know much more is needed.
Question: What if, far from being horrified by a half-baked riot they absurdly claim is worse than any domestic disturbance since the Civil War, the left actually LOVES the idea of violence on the right – the worse the better – since it perfectly serves their agenda? Increasingly, all the evidence strongly suggests today’s power-mad leftist elites not only intend to intimidate and discredit their political opponents by calling them terrorists, they mean to provoke actual violence.
The secret strategies and shocking tactics of today’s ascendant far-left elites are exposed as perhaps never before in the January issue of WND’s critically acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine, headlined “INCITING VIOLENCE: DEMS’ SECRET STRATEGY FOR STAYING IN POWER.”
WHISTLEBLOWER is available in both the popular print edition and a state-of-the-art digital version, either single issues or discounted annual subscriptions.
For 25 years, WND has boldly brought you the news that really matters. If you appreciate our Christian journalists and their uniquely truthful reporting and analysis, please help us by becoming a WND Insider!
Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].
SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!
