my local police department seized all my equipment

[ccarter79712]

what type of attorney would i hire if my local police department seized all my equipment and inventory which forced me to close my doors?

I am a small business owner that owns a screen printing company along with a retail store in Midland, tx On October 15th I had an existing customer place an order with one of my sales reps. The customer wanted 72 white t-shirts for the church athletic department with a custom logo designed and printed. The sales rep. when trying to get the customer an invoice noticed that the churches account was placed on hold due to an existing balance on there account, so I was called in to remove the hold. When typing up the order I notice that the due date was blank and the person requesting these shirts was not the original buyer but still a staff member. The sales rep presented the client with the proposal, he then approved the invoice and told the rep she could come pick up a check in two days. The invoice which stated under the price that they would receive a discount of 10% off if they paid for their project upfront instead of when they picked it up but it is totally optional. After this I ordered the t-shirts, burned the screens and got everything ready for this job to be printed. Two weeks into the job customer started calling about his order. The sales rep that was handling his order had quit during this period. customer had called the employee about his order and she let him know she know longer worked for me and then decided to use slander as a form to get back at me.
This caused fear and panic in several of my customers ultimately leading to this. On November I received a text message on my personal phone from customer stating that he was not only an associate pastor, but also a detective for the Midland Police Department and he was filing charges for theft of service against me if I did not have him his shirts by 5:30pm (it was 4:30) that day. I text him back stating that I apologize for the time delay that we where understaffed and that I could get his job out the
following day and I would give him a 50% discount for the inconvenience. He replied “the state of your company is none of my business and if I did not have his shirts by 5:30pm, I will file charges for theft in my office @ 8:00am tomorrow morning.” So I replied that I do not appreciate the threats and that I would give him a 100% refund when I get back from a business trip that I was on. He then replied “if you don’t have my money order tomorrow by 5:00pm he would file the charges.” Our company policy is not to give anyone a money order back on a refund especially one that paid with a
check, but the main reason is to protect our customers from disgruntle employees trying to cancel orders and robbing customers money. I texted back telling him that our normal policy is to mail a company check to the accounts billing address but if he came in on Monday then I would give it to him in person (but no money order). I also notified him that I was going to advise the pastor on the way his associate pastors are handling issues in the community. He notified me that his father was the pastor and He replied “I am not one of your employees and I don’t have to follow your rules, if you don’t
have my money by tomorrow I am filing charges, nothing personal just business.” so I left it at that and did not reply to any other messages. I figured that he just was having a bad day and if he came in on Monday then I would cut him a check but if he did not I was going to leave it on the schedule and print the job. My ex-employee texted me that customer had contacted her about going up to the police department to help file the complaint. The following day customer texted me the case number for the complaint.
On Monday December 8th I was at my shop and I received a knock on my back door and when I answered it, I was meet by two detectives asking if they could speak to me about a case that they were working on. Still thinking that I have done nothing wrong except for being busy I invited them to my office to discuss the disagreement. When we made it in to my office one detective asked me to turn around because they had a warrant out for my arrest when I asked for the reason they notified me that it was for theft of services. They did not know anything else but their sergeant was handling my case and he was on his way to take me to the police station for questioning. I tried explaining to them that I had not stolen anything. I sat at my desk in handcuffs for 30 minutes waiting on the sergeant. The sergeant arrived with three other detectives and read me my rights and said I had a warrant for theft of services <500/>1500 and they were there to take me to jail. During the questioning the detectives asked me if I had a website, business card and he wanted to see the supplies/t-shirts for the job and questioning the legitimacy of my business. I have been in business in Midland Texas for five years. Maintaining a location in the local mall for all five years. After showing him the t-shirts, artwork, screens, and ink I was going to use of his job and explaining that we offered the customer a refund but that he refused my company check and so I was waiting for him to let me know what he wanted to do. After about two hours of questions in my shop the sergeant noticed that on one of our printing press’s we had a t-shirt design that he thought required a trademark license and started questioning me about it. He asked if I had a license to print that shirt. I explained that I did
have a license and would have to look for it in a filing cabinet. When I was unable to produce the license he called in a FBI agent to question me and called in for a flatbed trailers so they could seize all my equipment and inventory. The agent arrived questioned me and my mother then left. The detectives loaded all my screen-printing equipment along with boxes of blank garments. They took random boxes
of inventory that I was going to sell at my retail location along with two computers from my office. The total estimated worth of equipment and inventory seized $100,000. My mom was the manager for my retail store. She came out to check on me after I called her to find out where the license was and tell her that I was going to jail. On her arrival she was bombarded with detectives questioning her, searched threw her purse, car and when she asked to leave to get an attorney they said she could not leave. They
took her day planner and a business credit card from her purse. After all the items were loaded I was then notified that they would be taking me to my retail store in the local mall to show them some more garments that they were questioning. On my arrival three detectives (customer being one of them) had already pulled six boxes of merchandise that they thought might be “questionable” and told me to
point out any thing they might have missed. After I notified them that they got it all they then sent my employee home and made the mall security guard close the kiosk. I was then escorted to the police car, handcuffed and taken to jail. The Midland Police Department forced my business to close after 5 years over a hunch that I
was trademark infringing against the university of Texas and that I stole from one of there fellow officers.

When the officers seized my equipment they also took the supplies I needed to do the officers job, i guess to hide the evidence(sounds weird). but i have a family member that is also in the industry, so i payed her to do the job and ship it to him, UPS.

Even though the police department and this pastor treated me like they where hitler the last thing i really wanted to do was to handle this in the courts. I have tried to be patient, thinking that at any time they would give me my stuff back.
no luck!!!!

I worked day and night to build this business to support my family and they just took it from me. since all my money was tied up in inventory for christmas time, when they seized everything we have had to live on borrowed money from family and friends.