No, they didn’t have it hidden to that extent. Basically the law right now is that money is guilty until proven innocent, and that we do not have any sort of right to our money if they deem it guilty. We have to go through the courts to prove it innocent.
Maybe that’s changed in the last 2 years or so, but that’s how it was last time I looked into it.
Yep. Hiding the cash is no guarantee and will be hard to explain away. I’m still looking for a better solution.
Hide it right. If you really need to carry that much cash take some of the car apart and put the money in. This is not going to be found unless you have drugs in the car too.
I think drug dogs are “trained” to hit on cash too.
I thought most cash has drug residue on it…
Back when the war on drug users was the big deal, I got hassled like hell driving through Conway AR. I was (foolishly) trying to drive from Las Vegas to Knoxville to attend a snap wedding. I made the mistake of stopped into the Awful House just off of I-40 for a short break.
Let’s see… first a bunch of self-identified “good old boys”, who claimed they weren’t cops, started hassling me,… coming up from their booth and sitting next to me at the counter, telling me stories about how drug runners get messed up in this town. When I went to the bathroom, one of these fools watched which I went to (“right way” meaning men’s) then they made a show of searching the the restroom after I finished.
Then uniformed cops got into the act, rolling up and blocking my car in, walking around it flashing lights in the windows, taking pix with a Polaroid flash camera. Then they called a tow truck in and parked it ready to tow me. When I went out and asked them what’s up, I got a “nothing unless you got something to hide” answer.
So at this point, I went to the pay phone, and called up my family back in San Diego. Who found me a 24 hour lawyer in Conway AR. Who, the first thing, asked me if I prey. I said “no”. He suggested I take it up. He said if it’s the locals, expect to be taken out to the woods and worked over a bit. Don’t fight back. If it’s the feds, they won’t work you over, but you will be going to Little Rock with them. Yikes.
So, after a couple of hours, when the uniformed cops got a call or just wandered off, I took my new lawyers advice and exited the Awful House parking lot. I had spent all my spending money and couldn’t tip the server… but she said that’s OK, said she knew I was being harassed, and wished me luck. At this point, I was going to miss the wedding, and I decided to drive across the street to what was then the Holiday Inn. After checking in, I made a quick trip to a nearby 7-11.
The next morning while having breakfast at the hotel coffee shop, at a table off by myself. Three federal plate cars pull up, a buncha obvious plain clothes cops get out, one points a weapon in my direction through the plate glass window. The rest walk in, take one look at me, and I heard them say in a highly exasperated tone “that’s not him”. They all turn around, get back into their cars, and left. I’m going to guess they weren’t happy being called out to work a bullshit job on what was Sunday morning. Then I got in my car and was followed by an unmarked Crown VIc to just short of Memphis… keeping it on number the whole time, making sure to always use my blinkers, etc/etc.
Of course, since I was never questioned by a cop in uniform, everyone figured I was crazy.
That was until weeks later when the owner of the Holiday Inn called me up. He said the “good old boys” were off-duty cops that had just left the bars, he said they were hassling me only because i had CA plates and I was driving at night, one or more cops were sleeping with his night manager, she let them into my room to illegally search when I went to the 7-11 (which I was unaware of), he fired her on the next morning, she sued him for wrongful dismissal, and he was calling to ask me if I would come back to Conway and give a deposition on his behalf. I said “Fuck no, I’m never going to AR again, but I’ll give a deposition in San Diego if you want”.
They never searched my car however, so they never found the ~$65k I had in cash. I drove back to Vegas on I-70 instead of I-40. I never heard from the Holiday Inn owner again. I did, however, later take a train through AR… .but not through Conway. The marriage was a disaster and only lasted a few months.
Thank God they didn’t search your car and find the cash.
That’s exactly what my AR lawyer said… when I called him from Memphis, and after he had got back from his Sunday service. He wasn’t kidding about preying. He said he was a devout Christian, and suggested I give it a try,
Doesn’t surprise me at all with a lawyer from that part of the country… I mean, to be honest, in the situation you were in I wouldn’t rule out any sources of help lol…
But yeah in that part of the country you’re going to get a lot of mixing religion with professional life in unprofessional ways, even from those who mean well with it and just aren’t going to realize that it might possibly not be received well.
Ha, I have a story just like this. I was camping in Colorado and driving home to IL and got pulled over in Nebraska for going 6 or 7 mph over the limit on the HWY. The officer asked the usual questions and then asked if he could search my car. I said no of course. He then asked if he could have his canine smell around my car, I said no. He said well, you can’t actually refuse that, he’s gonna sniff around your car. So I sat off on the side of the road watching the dog sniff around my car. At one point he sat down and then kept sniffing around.
After it was finished the officer says the dog smelled drugs in my car. I was like WHAT? Apparently the sitting down was the signal or whatever. I thought the dog would bark or something. I also know that there are absolutely no drugs in my car. So then officer spends the next 20 minutes digging through the car, which was a complete wreck with all my hiking/camping/climbing shit, little stuff sacks of random crap everywhere. I’m taking a nap in the grass, kind of laughing at this fucker digging around in all my dirty shit. Obv it wouldn’t be so funny if I did have some weed, which I guess is pretty common coming from CO where you could easily get medicinal weed at the time.
So eventually the officer gives up and can’t find anything, I’m like no shit. He tells me be safer with speed (lol) and lets me go on my way. I wanted to tell him to get a new dog that can actually smell drugs, but didn’t. Still pisses me off thinking about it. I’m sure it happened all the time near the CO border. I suppose it’s possible the dog made a mistake, but nahhh probably just sits at every fucking car they want to search.
IIRC a few years ago the standard liberal response to stories like these was to laugh at you and call you a sovereign citizen and say something idiotic like “but muh rights!” and it’ll probably be standard again a couple of years after Trump.
Most of my centrist leaning lib friends were surprised I declined the search. If you know your car is clean, why say no to the search?!! galdfjksdl
The only thing id be worried about saying no is a dirty cop planting drugs after he signals his dog to sit…
heh yea, I guess being and upper middle class white dude who rarely interacts with cops, that didn’t even cross my mind at the time.
It is kind of crazy that when you carry a large amount of cash, these days, the police are a much bigger threat to keeping it secure than civilian thieves.
I was watching a docu reality show recently where this detective was trying to get this alleged drug dealer.
They finally got something to get a warrant (nothing major) and when they went to arrest him at his house they ended up takin vehicles and other stuff as they chuckled he would not he able to prove he the money legally.
This is what police are doing, nonchalantly, when being filmed by an entire camera crew.
You are absolutely right, the burden to prove the money is legal is entirely on the person who has the money. It is an insane standard and everything to do with civil forfeiture needs to be blown up.
Right now it is “If you have a decent sum of cash you are convicted of being a criminal”.
I find a lot to fear from large police departments, but I think the smaller ones scare me much more. There is literally no oversight to anything they do.
Freedom isn’t free.
Freedom ain’t a boat that’s leavin’ without you.
This. Also, and as far as I know this is a only in the US thing, is why we have so damn many different cop agencies.
For example: there’s a city park near me. There are commuter train tracks running along one side, another side is adjacent to a military base. It’s within a mile of a major college campus. It’s routinely patrolled by the SDPD. But there’s also LEO park rangers. Because of the train tracks, there’s also SDSO, as they’re the contract transit police. Then we got Amtrak police & BNSF police, as they also use the train tracks. Plus… the park is within a mile of UC property, so there’s UCPD too. Finally, there are MPs & NCIS from the adjacent base. Those are all primary beats. Then there’s the ~1000 other cop shops who could investigate in this park too.
Example 2: G.Floyd was killed by the Minneapolis Park Police, not the MPD.