Feds seize $300,000 from shooting victim's home in Vallejo
(Graphic by Solano NewsNet)
Federal authorities have seized more than $300,000 from the Vallejo home of a man who was the victim of a fatal shooting earlier this year.
In court documents filed last week, a Drug Enforcement Agent said the cash was found on property believed to be connected to 32-year-old Ahman Burns, who was fatally shot on June 30.
A search warrant obtained by the Vallejo Police Department and executed on Burns’ Vallejo home led investigators to the discovery. Some cash was packaged in a way that suggested it was linked to activity involving the sale and distribution of marijuana.
Marijuana’s status as a “legal” drug in California is complicated: While voters in the state approved various initiatives that opened the door for recreational retail sales and use, it remains an illegal drug at the federal level.
During the administration of former President Barack Obama, officials with the U.S. Department of Justice said they would take a hands-off approach to marijuana investigations and prosecutions in states where lawmakers or voters made medicinal or recreational use of the drug legal.
The pledge was affirmed in an August 2013 memorandum sent to federal prosecutors by James Cole, then the Deputy Attorney General for the U.S. Justice Department. Despite the pledge, some marijuana-related prosecutions did occur in California, though it was mostly focused on large-scale cultivation operations on federal land or incidents where individuals trafficked the drug across state borders.
The Justice Department’s promise was rolled back during the Trump administration, with former U.S. Attorney Jeff Sessions rescinding the so-called “Cole memorandum.” Current U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland pledged in March to divert federal resources away from marijuana investigations, but he has yet to formally restore the directive outlined in the memorandum issued nearly a decade ago.
Federal police apparently used Garland’s inaction to seize the cash connected to the victim in the Vallejo shooting, including $285,000 that was found in a Jeep Cherokee used by the man and another $20,000 spotted in a vacuum-sealed bag inside the victim’s home.
The cash was confiscated under a little-known practice known as civil asset forfeiture, where police can seize and hold a person’s money and other property if they have reason to believe it might be connected to illegal activity.
In California, state law prohibits police from seizing “real property” like a house or an apartment through civil asset forfeiture if it is inhabited. But there are virtually no limits to when federal officers can seize property suspected of being connected to criminal activity.
Civil asset forfeiture is a “shoot-first, ask-questions-later” practice where the person whose property was seized must go to court and fight for it to be returned — even if the person is not convicted of any crime.
In the case of the Vallejo shooting victim, it is unlikely the money will ever be returned — the victim is dead, and it was not clear if a benefactor was willing to step up on his behalf to claim and fight for the cash.
Even if that did happen, it could open a new can of worms: According to the Bay Area News Group, the DEA seized all of the cash except for $5,000. The journalist who broke the story, Nate Gartrell, said it was unclear from court records why that specific amount was set aside, but it’s worth noting that $5,000 is typically the financial threshold needed by federal prosecutors to transform a criminal charge from a misdemeanor into a felony.
That means if someone does step in to claim the cash, and federal prosecutors can prove the money was connected to some illicit activity, the claimant could face a possible criminal charge later on down the road.
Gartrell’s article makes it clear that could eventually happen: During the search of the victim’s home, an unidentified woman apparently asked police how much cash was being seized from the property, according to an affidavit filed in court by a DEA agent.
“She didn’t know how much of either was present, but she claimed that the money and marijuana belonged to her and Burns and that they had planned on opening a marijuana dispensary,” the agent claimed.
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