Police take $91,000 from seat belt ticket

[Big Dad]

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/1/16686014/phillip-parhamovich-civil-forfeiture

Phil Parhamovich had been waiting for this moment for a long time. The 50-year-old had spent years restoring and selling houses, cars, and musical instruments, often clocking 12-hour workdays, to save up more than $91,000. And now it was all going to pay off: He would buy a music studio in Madison, Wisconsin, where Nirvana and the Smashing Pumpkins recorded songs — not just fulfilling a dream of owning a monument to grunge rock, but also giving him a space to work on his own career as a musician.

Then came the police stop this past March. By the time it was over, police in Wyoming would take all of Parhamovich’s money — the full $91,800. Parhamovich, who has no criminal record, was not accused of or charged with a serious crime; he only got a $25 ticket for improperly wearing his seat belt and a warning for “lane use.”

But Wyoming Highway Patrol officers found and eventually seized the $91,800 in cash, as it was hidden in a speaker cabinet — by getting Parhamovich, under what he claims was duress, to sign away his interest in the money through a waiver.

He has since tried to get his money back. But state law enforcement officials have rejected his pleas. Responding to a request for records related to Parhamovich’s case, state officials said they consider the cash “abandoned.” The state has even moved to forfeiture the money without notifying Parhamovich of the relevant court hearing until after it happened.



The traffic stop has completely disrupted Parhamovich’s life. He managed to get a nine-month lease of the studio he wants to buy. But he’s not sure what will happen if he can’t get his money back after nine months — and the realtor said that the primary goal is to sell the property, even if it means selling it to someone else.

“It’s been complete hell,” Parhamovich told me. “I don’t know too many people who put the kind of hours that I do. I don’t say that in an egotistical way at all; I was just working hard. … To just have some police officers take my money, it kills me.”

[Big Dad]

According to Parhamovich and his attorneys with the advocacy group, the Institute for Justice, this is another classic example of policing for profit and the problems it causes. Police initiated the stop for a minor traffic violation, but quickly escalated it further and further until they took a man’s life savings — all to use that money for their own law enforcement purposes.

We’ve seen cases like this before. Over the past several years, stories have come out of police abusing civil forfeiture, which allows law enforcement to seize and absorb private property, from cash to cars to boats, without ever charging the owner with a crime. Concerns about such abuses, including on the same highway Parhamovich drove through, led Wyoming lawmakers to enact stricter requirements for civil forfeiture in 2016. But with the use of a waiver, Parhamovich’s case shows how law enforcement can get around civil forfeiture reforms to continue policing for profit — and escalate even minor traffic stops into a situation in which a person’s entire livelihood is suddenly threatened.

A very expensive traffic stop
Parhamovich is not from Wyoming. He currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin. But he was driving down the I-80 in Laramie County, Wyoming, on March 13 during a concert tour for his band, the Dirt Brothers.

According to Parhamovich, it was during this drive — at approximately 6 pm — that an officer from the Wyoming Highway Patrol began following and then stopped him. The officer said the stop was due to Parhamovich’s improper lane and seat belt use. He asked Parhamovich to come back to his squad car, supposedly because he needed time to print out a ticket. Seeing no problem with this, Parhamovich agreed.

From there, the situation escalated. “He started asking me tons of questions,” Parhamovich told me. “With just about everything I answered, he discounted [and] was acting like whatever I was saying wasn’t true.” He added, “I don’t know if you’ve ever been stopped by a very aggressive cop. They just intimidate you with their power.”

The back of Phil Parhamovich’s minivan, right after police searched it.
The back of Phil Parhamovich’s minivan, right after police searched it. Phil Parhamovich via the Institute for Justice
At one point, the officer asked Parhamovich if he had a long list of items in his car — specific drugs, a weapon, a large amount of cash, and so on. With the way the question was phrased, Parhamovich said he was worried that answering “yes” would make things worse, since it could wrongfully imply he had illegal drugs in his car. He also became concerned, since he was questioned about cash and illegal drugs at the same time, that it was potentially against the law to carry so much cash at once. (It is not.)

Police brought in a drug-sniffing dog. According to Parhamovich, an officer used a ball to lure the dog to the car and get the canine to act up — and justify a search.

The officers now on the scene found Parhamovich’s cash. Both worried that carrying so much money was illegal and concerned that saying it was his would seem like he lied to cops before, Parhamovich said the money was a friend’s. He declined to say who that friend was — since, in reality, the friend didn’t exist, and the cash was his own.

Parhamovich said he prefers having his cash with him on hand in case opportunities present themselves to buy, for example, new instruments. He took the cash with him on his trip because he was worried about leaving it in the place he was renting back home, where maintenance workers often showed up. So he hid the cash in a speaker, which would always be near his sight and would require some effort to disassemble.

But now police had found it. At this point, officers presented a waiver to Parhamovich. It stated that the signer would “desire to give this property or currency, along with any and all interests and ownership that I may have in it, to the State of Wyoming, Division of Criminal Investigation, to be used for narcotics law enforcement purposes. If the property or currency cannot be used for narcotics law enforcement purposes, I desire that the property or currency be disposed of as the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation sees fit, in accordance with law.”

[Big Dad]

Long read .. I put enough here for those that bitch about hyper links, read the link for more info

[Shaggin Wagon]

Why would he sign such a waiver regardless?!...and wtf carrying 91k worth of cash on you?!

[Big Dad]

guess he was scared , police , police dog .. intimidated him , easy to understand

[LANTIRN]

And cops wonder why the public doesn't trust them. Fuck 'em.

[ceyko]

Well, I understand why he may have said it was a friend's but he should not have done that. Also I do not understand why he would sign the waiver.

It feels like there is more to this, but if it is as face value it's just downright wrong.

[GE]

Tl;dr

[Big A]

I'd be interested to know how exactly he did come up with that much money, the only thing that makes sense to me is that he "earned" it in less than straight-forward ways, otherwise there's no reason for duress. Now he's calm, and has a lawyer whispering in his ear that they can get it back without the threat of jail time.

Sorry, not gonna yell FTP with just this guy's side of the story.

[Strychnine]

I'm curious to see what else might come out about this one, as Vox is not exactly the most objective site out there.

As for the money:

Parhamovich had earned the money legally, largely by fixing guitars and selling old farmhouses after renovating them. He brought the cash with him when he went on tour because he worried that it wouldn't be safe at his apartment in Madison. He planned to used $80,000 of it for a down payment on a Madison recording studio he was in the process of buying.

So he keeps his entire life savings in his apartment rather than a bank, then when he travels - again rather than putting it in a bank - he stuffs it all inside a speaker box in his van... because he thought it would be safer there. Sure, there are probably drugs involved here. Not selling them to make the money, but doing loads in the years and years that led up to his completely retarded decisions on that day.


Also, apparently the waiver explicity stated:

"I...the owner of the property or currency described below, desire to give this property or currency, along with any and all interests and ownership that I may have in it, to the State of Wyoming, Division of Criminal Investigation, to be used for narcotics law enforcement purposes."

And not once during all of this did he think to ask for counsel? Yeah, he's retarded.


Having said all that though, there are no laws against making painfully stupid choices and this waterhead certainly doesn't deserve to have his bankroll taken from him. But I'll bet he never goes without a seatbelt again...

[Gasser64]

No law against being painfully stupid but committing no crime. If he actually didn't do anything, they should have to pay him back 3x that for the inconvenience.

[cyclonescott]

In related news.

New York Prosecutors Gave Themselves $3.2 Million in Bonuses With Asset Forfeiture Funds

The Suffolk County District Attorney's Office in New York doled out $3.25 million in bonuses to prosecutors from its asset forfeiture fund since 2012, according to records obtained by Newsday through a Freedom of Information request.

Newsday reported that the funds were $500,000 more than previously reported, leading to consternation from local legislators:

Bonus recipients included deputy chief homicide prosecutor Robert Biancavilla, who received a total of $108,886 between 2012 and 2017, and division chief Edward Heilig and top public corruption prosecutor Christopher McPartland, who each received $73,000, according to records obtained from county Comptroller John Kennedy's office through the Freedom of Information Law [...]

On Tuesday, the legislature will hold a public hearing on a bill by Legis. Robert Calarco (D-Patchogue) to require asset forfeiture expenditures, including by the district attorney's office and the police, sheriff's and probation departments, to be approved by the Public Safety Committee [...]

"Asset forfeiture money that comes into this county counts into the millions of dollars," Calarco said. "That's a lot of money to be spent at the sole discretion of an individual with no oversight."

According to Newsday, the U.S. Attorney's Office has subpoenaed the Suffolk County D.A. for more records on the bonuses.

The probe is ongoing fallout from the investigation of former Suffolk County Police Chief James Burke. Burke was sentenced this year to 46 months in federal prison for the 2012 beating of a young man who had stolen a duffel bag full of pornography and sex toys from the chief's unlocked SUV and the coverup of the beating. Former Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota and McPartland have been indicted for their alleged role in the coverup. Spota resigned a day after his indictment.

Duffel bags full of porno aside, the bonuses reveal one of the more problematic aspects of asset forfeiture. Law enforcement groups say asset forfeiture is a vital tool to disrupt organized drug trafficking. However, civil liberties advocates argue that lax reporting requirements, and the fact that asset forfeiture proceeds often flow directly into police and prosecutor budgets, create oversight-free expense accounts and perverse profit incentives.

As I wrote in September, recent news investigations have revealed several instances asset forfeiture accounts being used as off-the-books revenue streams:

Philadelphia Weekly, in collaboration with City & State PA, reported Wednesday that the local D.A.'s office had spent $7 million in asset forfeiture funds over the last five years, including "at least one contract that appears to have violated city ethics guidelines—construction work awarded to a company linked to one of the DA's own staff detectives." [...]

Meanwhile, Cincinnati's City Beat published a similar investigation into Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters' forfeiture piggy bank. City Beat found that the prosecutor office's $1.7 million forfeiture fund "has been tapped regularly for mundane purchases and, on two occasions, sketchy consulting contracts that Deters won't discuss."

The Institute for Justice, a libertarian-leaning law firm that has challenged forfeiture laws in several states, released a report this year finding that 26 states have little to no transparency requirements for asset forfeiture. Fourteen states "do not appear to require any form of property tracking, leaving in doubt even such basic questions as what was seized and how much it was worth, who seized it, when it was seized, where it was seized, and why it was seized."

Without stricter oversight and reporting requirements, the public must take it on faith that police and prosecutors in places like Suffolk County are being scrupulous with the money they seize from them. In this case, a Suffolk County prosecutor facing criminal charges for covering up the civil rights violations of a U.S. citizen received more than $70,000 in bonuses for his job performance.

Who knows what else is hiding in the forfeiture accounts—and duffel bags—of the public officials sworn to protect us?

[LANTIRN]

No law against being painfully stupid but committing no crime. If he actually didn't do anything, they should have to pay him back 3x that for the inconvenience.

I would take the badges from all officers involved and ban them from law enforecement for life

[D. Lil]

If he said it was his friends then he is definitely guilty of something.

[cyclonescott]

Some simple life lesson and this man would still have his money.
1. When an officer asks you a question simply reply "I do not answer question."
2. When asked to get out of your car, close the windows and lock the doors.
3. If asked by an officer if they can search your car reply " I do not consent to any searches."