Triple J Trucking owner Jerry Johnson has sued Arizona cops for refusing to return $40K cash seized from a Black trucking boss who was traveling to buy a new rig after they accused him of being a drug dealer with no evidence.
The Daily Mail got the details;
A North Carolina trucker has waged legal war against the entire police department of Phoenix, Arizona – after officers seized $39,500 in cash from him at a local airport alleging it was drug money. The suit, filed in April by Triple J Trucking owner Jerry Johnson, demands the sum returned in full for what he slammed as ‘false accusations’ by the force, who seized the money during an August 2020 stop at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
Johnson, the owner and operator of his Charlotte-based business, alleges that seizure was unjust, saying he had saved the money to purchase a new semi-truck.
Confident he could find a deal at an auction in Phoenix, the suit states, Johnson flew domestically with the cash from Charlotte to the Arizona city – but was quickly jammed up by detectives who questioned him about the perfectly legal haul. The suit adds that during this supposedly routine stop, investigators became adamant that Johnson, a middle-aged black men, was in the process of laundering the money as part of an illegal drug trade.
Eventually, under the threat of arrest and further interrogation, Johnson cooperated with detectives by handing over the $39,500. Cops have since refused to return the sum, standing by their initial assessment that the credentialed North Carolinian was using his business as a front. On Monday, in a crucial development in the now years-long legal saga, a libertarian-leaning public interest law firm filed an appeal in Arizona on Johnson’s behalf – after the suit was tossed last year by a local judge. The amended complaint reveals that more than two years later, Johnson is still without his money, and has yet to be charged with a crime.
‘I flew to Phoenix thinking I could get a good deal on a truck that would allow me to expand my business,’ Johnson said in a press release issued by The Institute for Justice.
The statement offered the shocking update that more than two years after that today, more than two years after the contentious seizure, he is still without his cash.
‘Instead,’ the business owner went on, ‘the police took my money without ever charging me with a crime. It’s been a struggle to lose my savings, and now my business is barely getting by.
‘I’m fighting for my money, but I’m also fighting because this should never happen to anyone else.’
The department, meanwhile, has for the most part kept mum about the seizure, hiding behind local forfeiture laws that allow officers to seize items suspected of being connected to criminal activity even if the owner is not charged with a crime.
After hours of being detained, Johnson returned home the next day – without the money, and without the truck. He was never charged with a crime.
The state passed reforms in 2017 to raise the evidentiary standards to allow airport forfeitures – from ‘a preponderance of evidence’ to ‘clear and convincing evidence.’
That precedent, however, has so far failed to help Johnson.
‘In Arizona, prosecutors are required to prove through clear and convincing evidence that money is connected to criminal activity before the property can be forfeited,’ Alban wrote in his statement. ‘But instead of holding the state to its burden of proving guilt,’ the jurist went on, ‘the court required Jerry to prove his own innocence.’
If the forfeiture is allowed to stand, Alban said, ‘it would create a dangerous loophole undermining Arizona’s efforts to protect property owners,’ including the state guidance ratified just a few years ago.
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