Poker Players Refusing to Fold – Legal Battle in a Cash Seizure Case Continues
9 years ago
03 Oct
An article from Des Moines Register describes a case of two poker players who have been victims of an alleged unlawful funds’ seizure. William ‘Bart’ Davis and John Newmerzhycky were stopped by Iowa State Patrol troopers who have searched their car and seized $102,000 – the money that was acquired playing poker.
The reason cited by the police for pulling the two aside was they failed to signal when passing another car. What seemed as a just regular police pull-over quickly turned into something completely different, as the police called in K-9 unit and performed a car-search.
During the search, they’ve found a large amount of money and a miniscule amount of weed (miniscule, as in traces) and this was a reason enough to seize the cash ($102,000), bring in the two men for questioning and then raid their homes the very next day.
The camera from the troopers’ car clearly shows that players did use their signal light and that the reason for stopping them was of a different nature, most likely because their plates indicated they were from out of state.
Despite the fact the men had medical marijuana cards, the marijuana found during the searches of their homes led to felony charges for possession. In a legal battle that ensued, lasting for past 15 months, they were able to get the charges dropped and recover about $90,000 of their money, but nearly third of it was spent on attorney’s fees.
Davis and Newmerzhycky are not ready to put this one to bed just yet. They will be looking to recover additional money through a lawsuit of their own, citing damage done to their financial wellbeing and reputation.
There is absolutely nothing illegal or uncommon about people driving through the United States with out-of-state plates ... and carrying amounts of cash. There's nothing illegal about carrying cash, and yet law enforcement begins to treat individuals who are carrying cash as if they are criminals. Glen Downey, representing attorney;This is only one in a string of legal battles in Iowa where state troopers have stretched their authorities to conduct searches on motorists without real reasons to suspect criminal activity. The lawsuit specifically cites that traffic warnings and citations are more often given to drivers from outside Iowa, and a review conducted by Des Moines in 2013 seems to confirm this, showing that 86% of traffic warnings were given to non-Iowans in the period 2008 – 2013.
Reactions From the Community
This case has, naturally, caused some turmoil amongst poker players. Members of poker community often travel with larger amounts of cash on their persons due to nature of their endeavors and these types of actions by the police are certainly not encouraging. Even less encouraging is the fact that only small percentage of the seized funds actually gets returned and even if it happens, it only happens after a lengthy legal battle.
It is stealing in my book when you have to hire a lawyer that costs bank just at the "chance" of getting your money back. RikaKazak;Not surprisingly, majority of posters were outraged with a very few trying to defend these procedures. Although the act itself doesn’t constitute ‘stealing’, having to hire and pay for a lawyer for a shot to ever see your money again comes very close.
Although many of these cases (poker and non-poker related) come close to crossing the line, they still remain with the boundaries of the law as it stands now in the USA. So the real question is not if the police are crossing the line but more are the laws way too close to the line?
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