Nevada Court Shuts Down Federal Civil Forfeiture Loophole That Bypassed State Restrictions

Legal Issues

from the gotta-play-by-ALL-the-rules dept
Fri, Feb 7th 2025 09:31am - Tim Cushing

Marine vet Stephen Lara’s lawsuit against the Nevada Highway Patrol (NHP) and forfeiture abuse in general in that state has paid off. Not just for Lara, whose $86,900 was returned to him shortly after he filed this lawsuit, but for all residents of the state, who are now less likely to see cops walk off with their property just because of a convenient loophole that allows them to bypass local restrictions on seizures.

Lara was pulled over by the Highway Patrol in February 2021, allegedly for following another vehicle too closely. During the traffic stop, several NHP officers gathered, milled around for awhile, and finally “discovered” nearly $87,000 in Lara’s vehicle. Lara had receipts for the cash — lots and lots of receipts generated by ATMs and bank tellers. But it didn’t matter to the troopers, who claimed their drug dug smelled drug residue on the cash, which meant it only could have been obtained by illegal means.

Of course, drug residue is present on almost all cash in circulation, which — following this logic — would make almost all cash everywhere the byproduct of illegal activity. The troopers took his cash. To ensure they’d still be able to keep most of it, they called up some DEA buddies, which allowed the NHP to use the “federal adoption” loophole that would allow them to keep up to 80% of anything they seized.

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