A Southern California mechanic and his wife, an unemployed ex-J.C. Penney clerk, have demanded that the U.S. Marshal's office return more than $222,000 taken from their 12-year-old Chrysler Voyager by government agents.
But U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) officials argue that the money, hidden behind speakers, was rightfully confiscated because it is proceeds from illegal narcotics trafficking.
A police dog named “Rebel” located the more than 7,700 U.S. currency bills during a March 2012 traffic stop in San Juan Capistrano.
The Fontana Police Department and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officers had been monitoring cell phone traffic from the Voyager prior to the stop and claim they recorded coded language involving drug deals.
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When first questioned, the occupants of the vehicle claimed ignorance of the hidden cash, according to a DOJ report.
The couple eventually hired a San Diego lawyer, who asserted that his Spanish-speaking clients misunderstood questions and should have the money returned to them.
Last week inside Orange County's Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse, U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter wasn't impressed by the couple's argument and declared that the government is entitled to keep the cash.
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CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.
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