Eh Wah, a Dallas resident who was born in Myanmar, challenged the seizure of more than $50,000 in cash by the Muskogee County Sheriff’s Department after he was pulled over for a traffic stop Feb. 27.





More than $50,000 seized by Muskogee County deputies in a traffic stop will be returned to a Dallas man and others who said the money was intended for a Thai orphanage and a Christian school in Myanmar.

Eh Wah, who lives in Dallas and is originally from Myanmar, was pulled over on U.S. 69 for having a broken brake light about 6:30 p.m. Feb. 27. Authorities seized $53,000 they found in his car and indicated that it would not be returned.

The Washington Post reported on the issue ahead of a press release issued by the man's attorneys Monday.

District Attorney Orvil Loge told the Tulsa World he has dismissed a drug-related felony charge and efforts to keep cash belonging to Wah, the tour manager for Burmese Christian rock band The Klo & Kweh Music Team. Money also will be returned to the band, its bassist, an Omaha, Nebraska-based church and an orphanage.

Loge said his office will mail a check for the full balance of what was seized to Wah's attorneys and that he made his decision Monday afternoon based on information that came to light in media reports.

"I looked at the case today and spoke with the officers, and we agreed that now that we've filed the case, our burden of proof had been elevated," Loge said of the felony matter. "We thought we would not be able to meet our burden of proof, so we had to act. And that's what I did this afternoon."

A probable cause affidavit in the felony case says a deputy's police dog alerted to Wah's vehicle, which prompted deputies to search the car, where they found $53,234 in cash. The affidavit does not say the deputy found any drugs or other contraband, but it says the money was seized "due to the inconsistent stories and Wah (being) unable to confirm the money was his."

Loge said Wah, 40, agreed to a search of the vehicle after telling the deputies he did not have contraband or associated proceeds inside. He added that what the deputies found "wasn't consistent with normal carrying of cash transactions."

The website of the Institute for Justice, a Virginia-based nonprofit libertarian-leaning law firm, says the cash came from ticket sales, offerings and donations made during the band's tour in such places as Illinois, New York and Texas. Institute for Justice senior attorney Matt Miller said Wah had a hard time communicating with deputies because he speaks imperfect English but nevertheless explained to the deputies that he was with a Christian rock band from Myanmar and had accompanied the band on its U.S. tour, which had reached 19 churches by that point. Miller told the Tulsa World that Wah put the deputies in touch with the band's leader, who confirmed that the money was raised lawfully.

"There were no drugs in the car. There was no drug paraphernalia. He had a perfectly legitimate reason to be in possession of all that cash," Miller added.

He said deputies questioned his client for about an hour on the side of the road before taking him in for a nearly five-hour interrogation. Miller said Wah received a warning for the tail light and was released.

On March 11 the District Attorney's Office filed a notice of seizure and forfeiture, which Wah and the other plaintiffs challenged formally Friday. Wah was charged April 5 with acquiring drug proceeds and appeared in court Monday morning before the case was dismissed.

In a phone interview with the Tulsa World on Monday morning, Wah said the situation was "the most unpleasant, terrifying experience you can imagine."

"I was shocked and scared the first time I learned I had a warrant on me," Wah said. "My parents — they were terrified. We never thought any time in our lives we'd see something like this. We didn't do anything that would be close to this kind of thing, the drug thing. ... You wake up in the morning, and it's the first thing in your mind."

Wah said in court documents that $2,000 of the seized cash is his but that he had all of the money in his possession for safekeeping during the band's tour. Muskogee County Sheriff Charles Pearson said Monday that Wah's explanation had "some inconsistencies" that led his deputies to think the cash was possibly related to drug proceeds.

Pearson said the Sheriff's Office isn't trying to deprive people of their civil rights and asserted that he needs to keep the community safe.

"You've got (U.S.) 69 running north and south all the way to Galveston (Texas); then you've got I-40 going east and west," he said. "Muskogee County is a major transfer point. We get a lot of drugs. It's just a major thoroughfare. ... I think we did our due diligence to investigate this case in particular."

Miller said the use of civil asset forfeiture in this case amounted to "policing for profit," citing Oklahoma's related laws that allow law enforcement agencies to use seized funds without proper oversight from a legislative body of elected officials. He said Monday afternoon that he was glad the county ultimately opted to dismiss the "meritless" case against Wah.

Oklahoma state Sen. Kyle Loveless introduced a bill last year to reform the state's civil asset forfeiture laws. It died in committee. The Institute for Justice's report on the issue assigned Oklahoma a D-minus grade in part because authorities need only to meet the preponderance of evidence standard in order to seize assets.

Loveless told the World on Monday that Wah's case is an example of how the current law is unfair and said he would continue to advocate for changes. He noted that the traffic stop occurred during the same week his bill was refused a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, commenting that "justice died" twice that week.

"If he hadn't had attorneys work for him pro bono to help him push this, he would have lost his money," Loveless said of Wah. "That just goes to show how bad the system is broken if they think that it works."

When asked about the use of civil asset forfeiture laws in this case, Loge maintained that the justice system served Wah properly.

"Civil forfeiture laws are designed to take criminal proceeds off the streets, and they're also designed to protect those that legitimately make money," he said. "We had probable cause to act as we did, and in the world of justice, things come to light. In this case, it did.

"Mr. Wah was without his money for almost two months. And that's a lot of money. Ultimately he's getting his money back, and the justice system worked."
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/muskogee-county-wrongly-seized-raised-for-asian-orphans-and-students/article_81e97275-db64-5fc5-8568-bf0d680bb2e3.html

Comment: This is a rare and fortunate outcome. Civil asset forfeiture has become quite a lucrative business for U.S. police departments, where the funds and property of innocent people are routinely stolen and often never returned.

Civil asset forfeiture is armed robbery by police
Civil asset forfeiture lives on: Justice department and local cops to continue sharing the proceeds of stealing your stuff
Police civil asset forfeitures exceed all burglaries in 2014 and rising fast

Legalized Robbery by the State!

I hope this is one topic that all liberals and all conservatives can agree on - civil forfeiture has been abused and citizens should be protected from this abuse.



Even when this guy is in the media spotlight and is trying to do the right thing he still says:



I'm a private citizen! I don't need a my reasons 'legitimized' by other people to keep my money as cash. Maybe I just don't like the banks! Maybe I want to make some some perfectly legal purchases but keep don't like having financial institutions spy on every transaction I make. Maybe I enjoy the look, feel, and smell of paper money. Who they hell are they to question whether anyone has a 'legitimate' reason to keep their money outside of the banking system?

It's a sad state of affairs when simply keeping your money as cash requires justification. The banks really do rule over us.

it just shows the laws being made are not for the benefit of the people, but for the benefit of the establishment...

This is disgusting.. Holy Crap batman..
Remind me to not travel in this area with cash...

remember what i was telling you about OK? here is a fine example

Yeppers and another reason why I wouldn't move there..

You know the other reasons...

yea.. watch out in Florida, too... they are notorious for this same thing..

Louisiana too...Sheriffs Dept's along I-10 have gotten rich off of traffic stops.

i watched a pretty cool video on FB yesterday about a sheriff looking for some gangbangers down there somewhere... if i can find it, i'll post it here

http://www.facebook.com/jookosnews/videos/10153742345313277/?pnref=story

all these activities are completely in violation of 'DUE PROCESS'.

Incidentally the iowa supreme court has now ruled that probable cause is not needed and that an arrest under probable suspicion is constitutional. I forget but it stemmed from a muffler violation where they guy proved the muffler was factory stock and in perfect working order.

This is well worth the listen.
more on that from an x deputy sheriff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F7bm7swDb4
Of course these little scripts never work for people as they say, but the object is to understand what is going on and the dirty legal tricks that will be played on you if you do not 'make the record' when dealing with the road nazis. That said I did not post this for anyone to try it, only to demonstrate the fraud and that the gvmnt have become the terrorists, and keep in mind these people do not hesitate to sue the municipalities that do not follow the rules. Keep that in mind.



Stop and seize

Aggressive police take hundreds of millions of dollars from motorists not charged with crimes

The Post found:

There have been 61,998 cash seizures made on highways and elsewhere since 9/11 without search warrants or indictments through the Equitable Sharing Program, totaling more than $2.5 billion. State and local authorities kept more than $1.7 billion of that while Justice, Homeland Security and other federal agencies received $800 million. Half of the seizures were below $8,800.

Only a sixth of the seizures were legally challenged, in part because of the costs of legal action against the government. But in 41 percent of cases — 4,455 — where there was a challenge, the government agreed to return money. The appeals process took more than a year in 40 percent of those cases and often required owners of the cash to sign agreements not to sue police over the seizures.

Hundreds of state and local departments and drug task forces appear to rely on seized cash, despite a federal ban on the money to pay salaries or otherwise support budgets. The Post found that 298 departments and 210 task forces have seized the equivalent of 20 percent or more of their annual budgets since 2008.

Agencies with police known to be participating in the Black Asphalt intelligence network have seen a 32 percent jump in seizures beginning in 2005, three times the rate of other police departments. Desert Snow-trained officers reported more than $427 million in cash seizures during highway stops in just one five-year period, according to company officials. More than 25,000 police have belonged to Black Asphalt, company officials said.

State law enforcement officials in Iowa and Kansas prohibited the use of the Black Asphalt network because of concerns that it might not be a legal law enforcement tool. A federal prosecutor in Nebraska warned that Black Asphalt reports could violate laws governing civil liberties, the handling of sensitive law enforcement information and the disclosure of pretrial information to defendants. But officials at Justice and Homeland Security continued to use it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/06/stop-and-seize/

He should be in the running for President.

The most sense I've heard in ages.

yea, i thought so too

Corruption every where might as well get used to it.

This past Tuesday, Nebraska made history when Governor Pete Ricketts signed LB 1106 into law, completely reforming the state's asset forfeiture system. In doing so, Nebraska has become the 10th stateto require a conviction before property can be seized. What's more, the reforms are so sweeping that Nebraska has become the third state, following New Mexico and North Carolina, to essentially disband its civil asset forfeiture system, a great boon for innocent citizens and private property.

As mentioned, LB 1106, first introduced by State Senator Tommy Garrett, enacted a number of major reforms to the state's asset forfeiture system. All cases must now be preceded by a criminal conviction, ensuring that innocent citizens don't have to suffer from having their property illegally apprehended. Furthermore, the state has the burden of proof in finding evidence that the property was involved in criminal activities. Throughout the case, proper documentation must be upheld and made public, maintaining transparency.

Nebraska's forfeiture reform also takes big steps in curbing the federal government's ability to pursue asset forfeiture in the state. With regard to the Equitable Sharing Program, run by the Department of Justice, the new law will prohibit local law enforcement from transferring property, valued less than $25,000, to federal agencies. Considering that, in 2013, 78 percent of all property seized in Nebraska through Equitable Sharing was valued at less than the $25,000 threshold (50 percent was actually less than $6,035), this limitation severely restricts law enforcement agencies from participating in the program. These restrictions also mean that local law enforcement agencies must use the local standard of proof, that is, a criminal conviction, before pursuing asset forfeiture, rather than using the less stringent standards of the federal government.

There is still work to be done in Nebraska, though. In 1984, citizens of the state voted in favor of aconstitutional amendment that distributed half of the proceeds from asset forfeiture to law enforcement agencies, while the other half was given to the state's school system. Unfortunately, this constitutional amendment gave police the incentive to pursue asset forfeiture as often as possible, as they were guaranteed to get half of the proceeds. Since this statute is in the Nebraska constitution, it will take another amendment to completely remove the incentive to seize property. Even so, given the checks and balances created with LB 1106, law enforcement will no longer be able to use that incentive to pursue seizures from innocent citizens.

Governor Ricketts, Senator Garrett, and the entire state of Nebraska have all played crucial roles in getting civil asset forfeiture reform passed and signed into law. Now, civil liberties, private property, and the rule of law will once again be protected in the Cornhusker State, serving as a great example for the rest of the nation to follow.

That's great news!