I am from Illinois but had this incident in Texas.
Here is a summary. Myself and 3 others one who is black ( the driver) were traveling from Illinois to Mexico to purchase and have shipped a truck load of ceramic and marble tile to our new bussiness address back in Illinois. We had just started this bussiness and had taken our first job orders. If you are in tile you know ceramics are very cheap across the border but more then often they prefer cash buys for volume discounts.Well to move this along I was awoken 30 minutes after I had switched driving as we were being stopped. No big deal.Officer comes to car gets all vehicle info reg, insurance , divers license and comes back stating he was just stopping us to let us know we had a low rear tire. He talks to everyone from the window gets verification everything is valid. He then says he thinks the driver side rear blinker might not have been working so asks driver and owner to get out of truck to watch and see. It comes on in front of everyone including the officer, He states he must just not have seen it. Next he asks where and why we are going. WE tell him and he then decides he wants to see all ids from everyone. He runs them Everyone comes back valid no warrants but more info came back on the drive that she had a felony drug conviction 5 years back. He asks if he can run the dog around the vehicle and the owners say " Sure you can run the dog around the truck". So he does and the dog just walks around the trucks never touching barking or even really looking at it. He then takes the dog off to the side of his vehicle( out of squad car camera view) and wrestles with him and gets his toy out then pockets it and returns to the truck walking the dog around again. He walked around again but this time pushes the dof toward the car tellin him fin it find it as he touches the dogs nose to the door. He then says thats an indicator. So he searches the inside of the vehicle as he has us sit in the grass. He doesnt find anything and the owner says I do have the right to watch you search do I not? He says yes. While watching him search she asks if she can get her purse and cell phone to call the tile people to let them know we would be late as we have now been detained 45 minutes
As she gets her purse he grabs it saying he sees money in it which there was all of the down payment receipt money for each of the 12 jobs which was close to 40,000 counted and marked per job.Well to make it short the owner and driver are arrested for conspiracy to launder money. Myself and the other passanger are detained stripped of all personal items including my company phone ,laptop, drivers license,credit cards, and money in our pockets. No drugs where in the vehicle even after they confiscated it and tore it apart and we were given a "courtesy ride" to some town and dropped off . Myself and our 4th partner we not get arrested ,ticketed or anything but the officer said the laptop will look good in his squad car and I would never get any of my stuff or credentials back. I was stranded with no money no credit card no id in some town called weatherford. They gave bond to my other 2 bussiness partners but filed forms for confiscation of the cash and vehicle ( minus all money in everyones pocket which was not reported) and none of the laptop ,credentials ,clothes, cell phone were even listed as taken. I have requested several times my items and have receipts for them but get no responce. The 2 who were detained never were given any court dates and this was over 4 months ago. I need help we basically got robbed. WE have invoice order for the jobs along with sworn affidavidt from our customers we were hired. We had to reimburst them by selling personal property and closing our bussiness. I also lost out on my other bussiness as all my work was stored on my laptop and cell phone contact list. What can I do . I can t afford a high dollar lawyer to fight the police??? Please help
06-26-2003, 04:59 PM
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