United States v. $17,900 in U.S. Currency, Case No. 15-cv-00368 (CRC)

200 F.Supp.3d 132

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff,

v.SEVENTEEN THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED DOLLARS ($17,900) IN UNITED STATES CURRENCY, Defendant.

Case No. 15-cv-00368 (CRC)

United States District Court, District of Columbia.

Signed August 4, 2016

Christopher Brodie Brown, Thomas P. Swanton, U.S. Attorney's Office, Washington, DC, for Plaintiff.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

CHRISTOPHER R. COOPER, United States District Judge

This case began with a familiar ethical dilemma: If you stumble upon a bag of money, do you keep it or turn it in to the police? An Amtrak passenger's decision to take the more virtuous path led to the government's seizure of the bag's contents—$17,900 in cash—as the alleged fruits of illegal narcotics trafficking. Two claimants now collectively assert interests in the entire currency. They have moved to dismiss the government's civil-forfeiture complaint, contending that it fails to plead an adequate connection between the $17,900 and the drug trade. The government subsequently moved to strike both claims in the currency for lack of standing. Finding that no reasonable jury could believe the Claimants' bizarre explanation for how they came to own the $17,900, the Court will grant the government's motion to strike both claims in their entirety.

I. Background

A. Seizure of the $17,900

On March 28, 2014, an Amtrak passenger notified Amtrak police that he had mistakenly removed a backpack belonging to someone else when he dismounted a train at Union Station in Washington, D.C. Amtrak police found within the backpack a brown shopping bag containing $17,900 in U.S. currency. Also inside were "a student notebook, some school papers, multiple electronic device chargers, a shirt, pants, and a cellular telephone." Govt.'s Ver. Compl. ("Compl.") ¶ 4. After the backpack was placed in a police roll-call room, a trained narcotics-detection dog alerted to the backpack as a whole.

One of the items in the backpack bore the name "Peter Rodriguez." After checking the train's manifest, a Metropolitan Police Department ("MPD") officer called the telephone number associated with him. Peter, having ridden the train the rest of the way to New York City, thoroughly described the backpack's contents but failed to mention the currency. After being directly asked twice, Peter denied that the backpack contained any money. He maintained this stance after being informed that a large amount of currency had in fact been found in the backpack, disclaiming "any knowledge of a brown bag or currency."¹ Id.¶ 9. Later that day, a woman named Angela Rodriguez—Peter's mother, and a New York City resident—contacted the MPD to recover the full amount of the $17,900, which she insisted belonged to her and her domestic partner, Joyce Copeland. The MPD nonetheless seized the currency, which remained in the custody of its Asset Forfeiture Unit.

B. Summary of Proceedings

Dubious of Ms. Rodriguez's claim, the federal Drug Enforcement Agency ("DEA") initiated an administrative process to effect the currency's forfeiture to the United States. The DEA contended that the $17,900 was forfeitable under 21 U.S.C. § 881 because it constituted "money ... intended to be furnished by a person in exchange for a controlled substance, proceeds traceable to such an exchange, or moneys ... used or intended to be used to facilitate a violation of [the Controlled Substances Act,] 21 U.S.C. § 801 et seq." Compl. ¶ 19. Ms. Rodriguez and Ms. Copeland ("Claimants") filed timely claims of interest in the currency—Ms. Rodriguez for $8,900, and Ms. Copeland for $9,000.

A criminal-background check revealed that Peter Rodriguez was arrested in New York on April 23, 2014—less than one month after his Amtrak trip—for criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree. (He was convicted later that year.) He had also been convicted of a controlled-substance offense in Virginia state court in May 2007. Claimant Joyce Copeland has been convicted of thirteen such offenses, including New York convictions dating to 1989, 1991, 2000, and 2002. After considering all of the circumstances surrounding the currency's seizure and the above convictions, the DEA declined to relinquish the currency to Ms. Rodriguez and Ms. Copeland; it remains in DEA custody.

The matter arrived in this Court when the United States (here, the Plaintiff) filed its Verified Complaint for Forfeiture in rem against the $17,900 in U.S. currency (the Defendant) in March 2015. Both Claimants—and no one else—later filed verified claims in the property, in the amounts listed above. See ECF Nos. 15–16. As third-party intervenors, they then moved to dismiss the government's Complaint, arguing that it failed to allege a theory of forfeitability that was "more than merely possible or conceivable." Mem. Supp. Claimants' Mot. Dismiss 1. This motion is fully briefed and awaiting decision.

In the midst of briefing on Claimants' motion to dismiss, the government served a set of Special Interrogatories on each Claimant in order to elucidate their "identity and relationship to the defendant property." Supplemental Rules for Admiralty or Maritime Claims and Asset Forfeiture Actions ("Supp. R.") G(6)(a). Shortly after receiving Claimants' responses, the government moved to strike their claims for lack of standing under Supplemental Rule G(8)(c)(i)(B). In short, the government asserts that Claimants are "true strangers to the events giving rise to the forfeiture" and have demonstrated no "colorable interest" in the seized currency. Govt.'s Reply Supp. Mot. Strike 2. Claimants must first demonstrate their standing before the Court may rule on their motion to dismiss. Supp. R. G(8)(c)(ii)(A). The Court held a hearing on both motions on July 18, 2016.

C. Claimants' Theory of Ownership

Claimants have had two opportunities to substantiate their claims of ownership—in administrative proceedings before the DEA, and in responding to the government's special interrogatories. Each Claimant was asked to "[s]tate in detail the circumstances in which [she] acquired [her] ownership interest in the Defendant Currency" and to submit any supporting documentation. Claimant Copeland's Resp. Special Interrogs. ("Copeland Resp."), ECF No. 27-3, at 7, 10; Claimant Rodriguez's Resp. Special Interrogs. ("Rodriguez Resp."), ECF No. 27-4, at 7, 10. Their most recent effort was assisted by pro bono counsel from a Washington, D.C. law firm.² Ms. Rodriguez and Ms. Copeland proffer a convoluted narrative that they insist accounts for all of the $17,900, with Ms. Rodriguez specifically claiming $8,900 and Ms. Copeland $9,000.

Claimants allege that they had been planning for some time to move to North Carolina from New York. In late 2012, they began pooling their money in order to purchase a used car so that both would be able to drive after they relocated to North Carolina. Because they "wanted to keep [the money] as cash," and because Ms. Rodriguez "has no credit card," Claimants stored all of the money saved for this purpose in a locked file cabinet in their shared apartment. Rodriguez Resp. 17, 19. Ms. Copeland claims to have sold a mink coat for $5,000 in cash in July 2013, Copeland Resp. 8, and to have withdrawn $4,400 of her federal tax refund from her JPMorgan Chase account on February 11, 2014, id. at 9. She also asserts that she cashed her January and February 2014 pay stubs upon receiving them, and has the relevant documentation "in her custody." Id. at 10–11; see also Claimants' Opp'n Govt.'s Mot. Strike ("Claimants' Opp'n") 9 ("Ms. Copeland ... cashed her pay checks upon receipt."). But her interrogatory responses contain no information about the nature of her employment or the amount of her earnings. So Ms. Copeland has specifically accounted for $9,400 in cash to cover her $9,000 claim, leaving a $400 surplus.

Ms. Rodriguez offered the following explanation for how she came to possess $8,900 in U.S. currency: In December 2012, she too sold a mink coat for $5,000 in cash.³ Rodriguez Resp. 8. She withdrew $800 from her checking account on July 15, 2013, and another $300 on February 14, 2014. Id. at 8–9. To account for the $2,800 shortfall, she claims to have received well over that amount in cash from Ms. Copeland in exchange for having paid her bills—even though Ms. Copeland had a bank account, and even though Ms. Rodriguez "ha[d] no credit card."⁴ Id. at 19. Ms. Rodriguez alleges that Ms. Copeland gave her "at least $1,700" in cash at some unspecified point between August 2013 and February 2014, id. at 8, and an unspecified amount of cash less than $2,148.05 at some point between February 10 and February 15, 2014, when the women left for North Carolina, id. at 9. In all, Ms. Rodriguez claims that Ms. Copeland gave her "at least $9,000 ... to put towards their cash savings." Id. The government argues that because Ms. Copeland substantiated her possession of only $400 in cash above the $9,000 she claims, Claimants' interrogatory responses—which rest in part on substantial cash transfers between Ms. Copeland and Ms. Rodriguez—"leave a deficit of at least $2,400 in cash unaccounted for." Govt.'s Reply Supp. Mot. Strike 6.

In any event, on January 14, 2014, Ms. Rodriguez underwent a pre-operation evaluation for a surgery scheduled to occur "sometime in March 2014." Rodriguez's Resp. 19. Claimants say they left New York City for North Carolina on February 15, 2014, intending to purchase a used car and search for housing. They brought all of their cash savings that had been earmarked for the move—"more than $17,900," some of which was spent during the trip. Id. They drove the entire distance without stopping overnight and stayed with Ms. Rodriguez's son Peter in Charlotte for the duration of their visit. Claimants visited several open houses while in North Carolina, but they did not establish ties, or maintain documentation of contacts, with any realtors. They paid all expenses in cash; no record of any sort exists to confirm that Claimants traveled to North...