Return of Property After Search

[TheNJBen]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Federal

Hello .. I was the subject of a federal search warrant by several out of state federal agents about 15.5 months ago. About 6 months ago I received an email saying I would have my stuff in a couple of weeks. About 4.5 months ago I received an email saying it would be a "few more weeks due to circumstances beyond their control." Both of those emails were unsolicited and initiated by the out of state agent. I still do not have return of my property. I did not do what the warrant alleged, only was involved in roleplay scenerios where it happened that others I spoke with may have taken a little more seriously and the agents seemed much more interested in them then me. I do not care at this point about my actual stuff, but I do want closure .. especially with plans to marry in a few months. I also do not want to rock any boats. Am I ever going toget it back or am I supposed to file a motion (which would cost more than what the stuff is worth)? Any advice would be great.

Ben

 

[outonbail]

Unfortunately, the Free Legal Advice psychic is on vacation and not due back until next fall. So we can not provide you with an answer in regards to whether you will have your "stuff" back and/or when this may happen.

Generally speaking, property which is not a part of a crime or evidence of a crime or stolen and/or illegal, can be returned upon the completion of a case and/or investigation, or whenever investigators determine it is of no further use to them. If it is not of much value, then I'd say just write it off. If you get it back, it's an unexpected bonus. If you don't get it back, you weren't expecting it anyway,,,,,

As far as wanting "closure", I'm not sure what it is you would consider closure. You have apparently been involved in some sort of behavior, or game with some group of idiots which has brought you under the Fed's radar.

Once this happens, you may never see any sort of closure as far as this situation is involved anyway. The investigation can go on indefinitely, even if they are not actually "working" it on a continuous basis.

Your plans on getting married are of course, no concern to the Feds whatsoever. Unless you are doing it to gain citizenship into the United States. Then they may raise an eyebrow, depending on what this role playing you claim to have been involved in, actually consisted of.

The only thing you can do is sit back and wait. Plus of course, learn from this experience.

 

[TheNJBen]

Hello, Thanks for your reply. I am not getting married to gain citizenship. I am American, always have been. I just mean in terms of putting this all behind me before marriage. The gist of the story is that I made a fake persona that some men wanted to do some illegal things with. I had several fake personas to be honest. I basically did what Perverted Justice did or what they do on 20/20 but without the sting part of it. For me it was more of a way to understand a certain kind of a person as a way of dealing with past abuse. Personally, I am not sure how they had evidence that I had such things going on for real inside my house as the fake personas were #1 nowhere living where I actually lived and #2 were kind of outlandish. Furthermore, if they did have surveilance on my house they would have seen nothing going on and finally they did have a search warrant for that email address prior to searching me where they would have seen several different personas and scenarios going on. THey were probably very selective in what they showed the judge. That said, I raelly do not care about my stuff. They wanted control of the personas I made up, I gave it to them and let them go after the people who were actually interested in committing a crime. The REAL bad people that is.

 

[outonbail]

The gist of the story is that I made a fake persona that some men wanted to do some illegal things with. I had several fake personas to be honest. I basically did what Perverted Justice did or what they do on 20/20 but without the sting part of it.

It’s never a good idea to play detective, or participate in any on line correspondence with predators or any sort of criminal element lurking about in cyber society or anywhere else.

I suggest avoiding such a thing for several reasons. First, as you have discovered the hard way, any authorities who are made aware of your little game are going to react to the situation and any communications as if they are indeed real, until their investigation proves otherwise.
This means they start a file with your name on the top. Below your name is your identification, life history, your immediate family and their history, your friends and anyone else who may reside in the household. This all happens way before they come knocking on your door. So basically, this stunt has now become part of your history and those around you as well.

Even in this case, where your intentions couild have been to help the police and even if you believe you are doing just that, what you have really done, is cause them to allocate resources to investigate you, which could have been utilized on one of the many thousands of real situations they must find time to deal with every day.

Another unpleasant situation which could arise as a result of your activities and one which may be more cause for worry than the authorities kicking in your door.
If by chance they do make an arrest as a result of one of these made up “Persona’s” you’ve provided them, then you and the communications you have had with the bad guy, will all be exposed before trial, in what is called the discovery process.
Since you have no agreement with the Fed's to be treated as a confidential informant, the person/suspect, who may be looking at many years behind bars, will more than likely end up knowing all the personal information of whoever it was that got the ball rolling. In this case, YOU!

Are you familiar with the saying, “Be careful what you ask for, you just may get it”?
Well your efforts to play detective may actually net a suspect, or as you put it, “the REAL bad people“.

In my opinion, the less contact you have with law enforcement and "the REAL bad people", the better and safer life will be.

 

[kroam82]

If you want the stuff back reply to the email that was sent to you asking them to send it. Work does get hectic and returning evidence is usually the thing that gets ignored when it does. If you do not want the stuff back you would be doing them a favor by sending them an email that you wish for the items to be destroyed. Depending on policy they may need you to sign a form but usually an email will suffice. They usually will not have any problem with you contacting them to inquire about your stuff. They probably just got swamped and it got pushed to the wayside.

 

[TheNJBen]

Well while not defending what I did as being the right thing to do in terms of fame personas, I do have some bit of satisfaction in that it did allow the feds to know of several other predators and I was as open and cooperative as I could possibly have been. A lawyer may be cringing now and I know that you are never ever ever supposed to talk to the feds without one present, ESPECIALLY if you think you are innocent, but it was a weird time for me. I was in the midst of untreated very severe sleep apnea and was nearing a full year of chronic sleep deprivation making me basically a narcoleptic until I finally talked my doctor into ordering a sleep study and getting treated. I did ask the agent regarding my confidentiality after the fact and they said they saw no reason why anyone would have to know my involvement but they also did not guarentee it in that they said I would be notified if my identity would be revleaed.