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twitterLAW ENFORCEMENT:
A duffel bag, a fortune, and heat from the law
For those carrying a million in cash, be prepared for questions if you’re stopped
Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009 | 2 a.m.
He was going four miles over the speed limit when troopers pulled him over on the outskirts of the Las Vegas Valley.
And when they asked to search his car, according to court documents, Michael Simhard “dropped his arms to his side, and exhaled with a blank look on his face.”
He had $999,830 in the trunk.
Drug smugglers typically travel north on Interstate 15, while currency smugglers travel south, as Simhard was. The drugs come up out of Mexico, the sales proceeds go back. The Nevada Highway Patrol makes 10 to 15 big cash seizures annually. This one, just $170 shy of $1 million, is the biggest in years.
But let’s be clear: Simhard wasn’t arrested and hasn’t been charged with any crime.
Standing on the side of the road that August evening, right by the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Simhard said he knew nothing about the cash, and wrote out a voluntary statement: “Bags aren’t mine. Money isn’t mine.”
A drug dog alerted to an odor of a controlled substance on two of the bags holding the money, according to the court filing. The search, however, found no illegal drugs in the luggage or anywhere else in the car. Just because a guy is driving with a fortune in his trunk doesn’t mean you can arrest him. So, according to court documents, Simhard left the money with Nevada authorities and returned to British Columbia five days later.
Law enforcement officials allege the cash in a blue duffel bag and blue canvas suitcase in the rental car’s trunk is “traceable to exchanges of controlled substances.”
Now the U.S. attorney’s office is in court, trying to keep the cash. In the legal logic of criminal forfeiture, the federal government is actually suing the money — the case is titled “United States of America v. $999,830.00 in United States Currency.” The cash is the defendant, and the defendant, if you believe law enforcement, is part of the drug trade.
Law enforcement agencies can seize, and eventually spend, the proceeds of criminal activity — the money is divided among the agencies that participate in the bust. In cases like this one, a public notice is printed first. In layman’s terms, the notices read something like this: “We seized a lot of money. We’d like to keep it, since we think it’s ill-gotten, but if it’s yours and you’d like to claim it ...”
If nobody tries to claim the money, it goes into government coffers. If someone does claim it, the case goes to court.
Simhard filed a claim in October. The case landed in federal court in Nevada last week. The Sun couldn’t find Simhard to ask him how money he knew nothing about became his to claim, and the case file provides no details.
The government’s filing in the court case does, however, lay out the explanation he allegedly gave police the night he was pulled over: He flew from Montreal to Newark, N.J., in early August. From Newark, he traveled to St. Louis. He was coming to Vegas to meet friends to shoot craps at the Bellagio. In the car, a white Ford, police found a one-way rental car receipt for $705.
The questions started.
“Simhard’s level of nervousness,” the court papers note, “was rising.”
Within minutes, more troopers, plus Metro officers and a DEA agent, had arrived. They asked Simhard if they could look at the phone numbers in his BlackBerry phone. He agreed, but the phone was locked. He didn’t remember the password. A Metro officer decided to try the word “BlackBerry.” When he punched it in, all of the information in the phone was erased.
None of the law enforcement agencies involved will talk about the case; neither will the U.S. attorney’s office. The money — the defendant — remains in custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.
Mike Flanagan, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration in Las Vegas, says that in his line of work you get used to coming across this kind of cash.
“It’s all just dirty paper to us.”
This story has been corrected. An earlier version of this story said the drug enforcement dogs did not smell anything in the trunk of Canadian motorist's rented car.
Discussion: 29 comments so far…
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Why would he consent to the search? It sounds like it's questionable whether he consented.
As for pulling someone over for going 4 miles over the limit. Highway Patrol are a bunch of scumbags. Speeding up behind somebody at night trying to get them go to over the limit so they can pull them over. GFY.
So how fast over the limit should they pull someone over?
lvenforcer, please. At 4 over the limit on the freeway/hwy., you are being run off the road, and that includes by law enforcement as well. That's just reality in this town. Also, at 4 over the limit, at least admit you are looking for an excuse to pull the guy over. Not saying that's right or wrong, but reality.
It is obvious that he was a target before he was speeding.
They must have had a tip that he was hauling the cash.
They just needed a reason to pull him over.
4 miles per hour was a reason.
It does not take much for them to search the car without consent either.
Because the expectation of privacy is lower for your car than your house, all the cop needs is probable cause.
An excellent piece on how law enforcement REALLY works, including the courts who get paid for backing cops' plays like this. Let's read between the lines with Killer B.:
1- 4 mph over isn't a violation, it's just fishing for an excuse to search and find something bigger like this. It's stupid to expect us to NOT watch the road and traffic but our speedometers. Especially in all that construction on I-15 north of town, we're supposed to keep our eyes glued on the speedometer and pray that both it and the one in the cop's car pacing you are right?
2- As in many other states writing tickets (not just for traffic) = big revenue. Another western state collects and spends more than 3x its biennial budget with fines, fees, assessments and penalties. And that's just on the state level, not municipal.
3- It's reasons like this why one should NEVER give consent to a search by the intimidating person in uniform showing both badge and gun. The cop is just trying to get around getting a warrant. That cop, for what it's worth nowadays, got that job by promising to support and uphold the Constitutions -- including that prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure.
4- The courts used to throw out searches like this, calling them "fruits of the poisonous tree." Now their paychecks depend on government being fat with cash. Like suing the cash directly, which isn't a person who can sue and defend, and shifting the burden of proof on whoever owns it. That's just backwards.
Taking the lead from the Imperial Bush Regime, government at every level is no longer just a parasite, it's a bold predator. It's actively out there looking for ways to make what's yours theirs.
This ain't our fathers' American any more.
come on... be honest.... how much money was there realy....
Don't do the crime if you can't pay the fine....
You guys defending the person who could not explain how he had a million in his trunk sound like crooks to me. Or maybe you are attorneys. He was not going fast enough? Really? Killerb, 1-4 over is not a violation? Are you really that dumb? Tell me, is 5-10 only half a violation? And if 1-4mph stops are for fishing to find something bigger, then I guess it worked didn't it? It works all of the time. They find things like drugs and incredible amounts of money that people can't explain. Then people like you try to defend the criminals and state the police's actions were unjustified. They found almost a million dollars which could not be explained. You really don't see a problem here? "It's reasons like this why one should NEVER give consent to a search by the intimidating person in uniform showing both badge and gun". Funny, I would say it's reasons like this that you shouldn't carry a million dollars of someone's illegal money around. Just to be clear, I would never give consent to search my vehicle, but I am not going to defend this person or any other criminal who gets caught because he or she gave consent to search. There were no charges filed against this guy. He said it wasn't his money, so he didn't have a right to it. For all they know, the last person who rented that car left it there. That is why there is a court case.
maybe he didn't want to put it in the bank or the stock market or somewhere "safe and legal" the last was a joke, there is no place legal that is safe! oh and i didn't notice any "change" today, i'm still without a job and no way to put food on my table.
With the stock market tanking, I always carry my cash in the trunk of my car and its easy to get at if you need cash at a fast food drive-thru.
Every comment here missed the obvious:
"Within minutes, more troopers, plus Metro officers and a DEA agent, had arrived. They asked Simhard if they could look at the phone numbers in his BlackBerry phone".
That roster pulls up to a routine traffic stop for 4 mph + ? A DEA agent happened to be driving by?
This Cat was on the Rader long before his car entered the Radar.
And that's fine, doubledown; it's lvenforcer who is writing here pretending that people going
4 miles over the INTERSTATE speed limit are actually targets in & of themselves for committing such an egregious infraction. If you've driven the highways & byways of the valley, you know how insanely FUNNY that is. If I go anywhere near the posted on the freeway system here, cops FLY by me with all of the other traffic. So please, don't insult our intelligence with the 4 over crap.
If you had a bad guy on your "radar" and you were looking for an excuse to pick him up, fine. We get that.
So once again I ask "So how fast over the limit should they pull someone over?" five miles or fifty miles over? Does it matter?
Well, a suppression hearing would ferret out the facts. Even tho' 4 over is technically a violation, if it is not evenly enforced, the evidence ($) could be suppressed. The fact that the DEA showed up at the stop would also help in the suppression because it shows the 4+ was NOT the underlying cause for the stop. I am sure LV has some dope lawyers who would take this case on a 33% recovery contingency.
At the end of the day, keeping that coin out of the Mex Mafia's hands might actually save a few lives in some transactional way...If I was that guy who "lost" the $999k, I would consider a change of address in a big way...maybe NZ?
NEVER, NEVER,NEVER,NEVER,NEVER,NEVER,NEVER consent to a search by the cops. Especially in Henderson. Even if you believe you have nothing to hide. I did it and the cops planted a drug pipe. I dont do drugs and never will. I dont know people that do drugs and would never let them in my car. Since I had very little money at the time and paying for a lawyer would be more expensive than the fine....now that I think of it, the cops probably new that just by looking at my old beat up car. Can you say revenue. Well now I have a record, This was about 7 years ago and it still makes my a$$ itch till this day!
For what reason would it be suppressed? As long as there is probable cause or reasonable suspicion then the stop is valid. In this cause there is probable cause for the stop since the drive violated the posted speed limit.
lvenforcer - this is not mall security or working crowd control @ the Hardrock pool.
I don't have time to explain how this works in detail but here is a short version - If you pick fruit from the forbidden tree...the judge will taketh the fruit./ It's called suppression. If a trooper is asked to produce a citation log for the past 5 years and he has NEVER written a ticket for 4 MPH over the posted, this case will get dumped and the money quietly returned c/o some local law office.
Isn't it funny how people like Doubledown make up the law? Armchair litigating with a splash of too much Law & Order.
The speed is simply the probable cause this trooper used to pull this guy over. His radar probably shot through the roof when he pulled behind an out of state rental car heading south in one of the biggest drug corridors in the U.S.
4 MPH over? You bet I'm going to see what this guy's up to, and it was a good hunch.
And think about the DEA fact that you've fixated on. They probably weren't in the neighborhood when this stop occurred, but rather called by the trooper when $1 million was found in the trunk.
There isn't a lawyer in the world that's going to get the money suppressed because there's no reason for it.
A Hunch ? Again with the Mall Squad...This is not a disturbance at the Annie Pretzel counter!
If your rank is "Capt". and you do not know what a pretext traffic stop is...You must be Capt of the Searchlight PD...Or some wannabe private whack job with the mirror sunglasses and a wardrobe full of Caliber Press T-shirts driving that used Crown Vic you bought at auction.
Google: pretext traffic stop there Cap-jack!
Some of you seem to suggest driving I-15 SB slightly over the speed limit in a rental car = probable cause + reasonable search. It is not.
Mr. Simhard's biggest mistake was consenting to the search, as some of you more astute commenters said.
If this guy had truly been on the cops'/DEA's "rader" then they should have had a warrant ready. No, far too much of this just stinks.
Speeding is not probable cause to search a vehicle.
Killerb, nice post.
And the reason why the DEA and Metro showed up within minutes was so they could all claim a piece of that dirty money pie.
A close friend of mine told me he would never consent to a vehicle search and neither should I. He's been a cop for eight years.
Some of you boneheads need to read the constitution or move to another country where you can give up your last remaining rights and let the police have absolute power.
I think the term you are looking for is "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree." It comes into play when the government violates the protections of the Constitution. Since there was no violation, because the stop was lawful, no suppression. Pretextual vehicle stops are legal in Nevada, if the probable cause used for the stop can stand by itself, hence violation of the posted speed limit.
There was no probable cause to search the vehicle, because none was needed. The driver consented to the search and then abandoned the property. "That is not my bags, not my money".
Oh and LVMPD has primary jurisdiction in Searchlight.
I'm gonna guess that the vehicle "fit a profile" for a dope/$$$ runner. They are literally looking for a certain "type" of vehicle, which they identify here. THEN they figure a way to pull him over. Should be a good bust, but again you have the flimsy 4 miles over. Hope your radar gun has been certified, calibrated, tested, logged, whatever you all do. Doesn't Nevada have a "suspended object" from the rear-view mirror? That's always a good one.
Yeah, or maybe bald tires? The light over the license plate is out, there's a reason to pull someone over & harass them for an hour. I can't believe that anyone is dumb enough to consent to search when being pulled over for 4 miles an hour over. What does going 4 miles over the speed limit & "Can we search your vehicle" have to do with each other? The people are slowly giving up their rights and will really be sorry when they see what is happening in all it's glory.
Look at that, more armchair litigating by doubledown. "Suppress the money" he says, failing to read that the money is the defendant in the case. Once again, too much Law & Order.
Perhaps YOU should Google Pretext Traffic Stop, because you seem to lack a basic understanding of the subject. Here's some federal case law for you to read on the matter. It uses big words so I suspect you might need someone to help you out. http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/95...
If you don't want your $1 million found, drive the speed limit and don't consent to the search. If police have PC to pull you over, which they did from your minor traffic violation, they can ask to search the car.
Oh, and Capt. of the Resident Officer Section (rurals like Searchlight) gets paid over six figures a year. If only.
Perfect example of "road pirates"....now, all agencies wanna get thier grubby little hands on thier piece of the $$$...... 4 mph is technically over speed limit but he was obviously profiled for unknown reasons. The real "organized crime" in this country are local, state, and Federal agencies like the DEA.