A team was created to roam Interstate 95 in search of forfeiture cases. Officers stopped drivers and took money but never wrote a ticket.

DILLON — Across South Carolina, cops are wielding forfeiture rules for profit, but it isn’t always done under state law.

Police can call federal agents to a traffic stop or citizen detention and turn over the seizure to agencies like the DEA. That puts their attempt to take citizens’ money under different, and sometimes looser, federal laws.

What happened to Tony Gonzalez in one small railway town a few miles from the North Carolina state line provides a rare window into how this federal forfeiture program works. While the TAKEN investigation focused on the state law, we found the effect it had on the citizens it targeted was the same, regardless of which law was used.

Dillon police stopped Gonzalez, a manager of a Hartford, Connecticut, salon, a few days before Thanksgiving in 2014. What seemed like a routine traffic stop quickly escalated: the officer began questioning Gonzalez and asked if there were drugs inside the vehicle; then, if he could search it.

Instead of drugs, the officer found $98,000 cash — what Gonzalez said was his life savings. Police seized the money and turned it over to the DEA, saying Gonzalez fit the profile of a drug trafficker and that the money was linked to criminal activity.

Yet Gonzalez wasn’t arrested, and he was never charged with a crime.

It was not a unique occurrence.

In April 2015, five months after his savings were seized, Gonzalez sued the Dillon Police Department for civil rights violations.

At the same time, Gonzalez filed a claim with the federal government contesting the forfeiture. His money was soon returned, but not before his attorneys made a startling discovery: Gonzalez was just one of hundreds of out-of-state minority motorists Dillon police officers have stopped and searched on Interstate 95, miles outside their normal jurisdiction.

The payout for patrolling the interstate was huge. Police seized more than $1 million between 2008-2015 under the federal forfeiture program, according to evidence filed with the lawsuit. In turn, the money was used to buy police cars, body cameras and basic policing equipment they said they otherwise couldn’t afford.

Dillon isn't alone. Local and state agencies frequently partner with federal agencies on forfeiture cases. Federal prosecutors will "adopt" forfeiture cases, then share the proceeds with the local agency that seized the money.

Agencies across South Carolina received $10.7 million in forfeiture revenue from federal sources in fiscal years 2014 to 2016, roughly the study period for the TAKEN investigation. That's in addition to the $17 million police seized using the state's forfeiture law.

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Stopped by a special police unit in search of cash

A little after 9 a.m. Nov. 24, 2014, a dark-colored Mercedes SUV crossed the state line into Dillon County.

The driver, Gonzalez, was headed to Deltona, Florida, to reunite with his family, which he hadn’t seen in months. His cruise control was on, the windows down. He listened to salsa music, tapping out the rhythms on the steering wheel.

Show caption Hide caption A book written on the “Magical Powers of Santa Muerte” on display during a seminar in El Paso. Police learn to look for clues for... A book written on the “Magical Powers of Santa Muerte” on display during a seminar in El Paso. Police learn to look for clues for search cause — like images of the patron saint of drug traffickers. RUDY GUTIERREZ / EL PASO TIMES

“I remember being very happy that I was going to see my family,” Gonzalez later said in his testimony. “I couldn’t wait to hold my kids, see my girlfriend.”

He was pulling off an exit ramp to look for a restroom when Dillon police Sgt. Allen Turner stopped him for an alleged lane violation.

Turner at the time was part of a task force called the Interstate Criminal Enforcement, or ICE, Team and had received extensive training on highway interdiction, police said in court filings.

With less than a mile of interstate frontage in Dillon city limits, the ICE Team spent most of its time outside its jurisdiction, patrolling I-95 under a mutual aid agreement with the Dillon County Sheriff’s Office. In exchange, any forfeiture made by the ICE Team is split between the Sheriff’s Office and Police Department.

Dillon police unit searches cars but doesn’t write tickets

Earlier that morning, Turner had visited the elementary school with his K-9, Mace. According to Turner, there were only two drug dogs in the county at the time, and both belonged to ICE team members.

The sergeant was stationed at his usual spot by mile marker 193 when a black Mercedes SUV passed him. Turner, saying that the SUV had swerved in and out of the rumble strips, followed the vehicle. Turner flashed his blue lights as they got onto the exit ramp. It was his first stop of the day.

He asked Gonzalez where he was headed and what time he had left Connecticut. Where in Florida was he moving to? Whose car was he driving?

Gonzalez would later find out that his was the “fifth of these same kind of Mercedes” police had stopped and searched that month, according to his testimony.

Tony Gonzalez “I felt that everything that was going on was wrong. I felt scared, and I felt that I knew they were going to do something to me, but I didn’t know what.” Quote icon

“I felt that everything that was going on was wrong,” he said. “I felt scared, and I felt that I knew they were going to do something to me, but I didn’t know what.”

Gonzalez was eventually told that he was being let off with a warning. This was standard procedure for the ICE Team. According to court records, both Turner and then-Dillon Police Chief Joe Rogers testified the officers had never written a single traffic citation.

A supervisor for the ICE Team explained in an affidavit that writing tickets would require officers to appear in county magistrate court, which would be an “unwise move of department resources.”

Gonzalez’s attorneys described it differently in the lawsuit. “The traffic stops are simply a pretext to search and seize,” they said.

More: Enterprising town turns SC highways into rivers of cash

More: Spurred by TAKEN series, South Carolina legislators seek to reform civil forfeiture

But police say officers already had reason to suspect that Gonzalez was involved in the illegal drug trade. Turner detailed the reasons in his report. He said Gonzalez fit the profile of a drug smuggler because he was driving on I-95, “a known drug corridor,” and headed to Florida, “a known drug source state.”

The vehicle Gonzalez drove was registered to a third party and “reeked of air fresheners.” He was also traveling lightly. Turner said he found no evidence of boxes or luggage to indicate Gonzalez was in the middle of a move.

Police also noted that Gonzalez was “excessively nervous” and wore a bracelet that appeared to have an image of Santa Muerte, a Mexican folk deity Turner described as a kind of patron saint of drug traffickers.

The bracelet actually depicted the Virgin Mary, Gonzalez said. It had been a gift from his aunt.

Drug unit uses profit from its seizures to pay rent

Gonzalez was detained for nearly two hours while Turner and three other officers combed through his vehicle. Eventually, officers opened the SUV’s first aid compartment and found a black bag with stacks of vacuum-sealed money inside.

Gonzalez told police he planned on buying a house in Florida with the money, which he had earned working multiple jobs over 16 years.

“That’s all I got. That’s my whole life,” he said.

To Dillon police, it was another supplement to their budget.

In court filings, the department appears to rely heavily on asset seizures some years despite state and federal laws that ban police from using the profits to pay salaries or other recurring expenses.

In 2008, operating budgets provided in the lawsuit show Dillon police took in more than $447,000 in forfeiture revenue. Of those funds, a little over $100,000 was transferred into the city’s general fund while the rest was used by the police department to buy cars.

In 2009, the department received nearly $146,000 in forfeiture funds, the equivalent of 10 percent of its $1.4 million budget that year. The department received more than $206,000 in 2011 and $129,000 in 2012, records show.

The amount of money in the drug fund varies year to year, according to testimony from Rogers, who's since retired from the force.

Floodwaters from Hurricane Florence surround homes Monday in Dillon in 2018. The small town in the Pee Dee region has held onto a fairly stable population over the years. Gerald Herbert, AP

Rogers said the revenue was used to pay for training conferences and to rent the office space where the ICE Team is based. The Police Department also used forfeiture money to buy 10 dash and body cameras and the recording system that goes with it, he said.

However, Rogers insisted the department had never specifically budgeted for forfeiture revenue. “It’s either there or it’s not there if you don’t get it, and you can see where we’ve had some very lean years and we needed it,” he said.

Gonzalez’s attorneys probed even deeper. In addition to line item budgets, they demanded copies of every traffic warning issued by the ICE Team over the last five years.

The tickets, submitted as exhibits, number in the thousands, with an overwhelming number involving Hispanic drivers from New York, Florida or California, court records show.

The exhibits were among the last entries on the docket. Gonzalez’ lawsuit was settled out of court 12 days later, on May 11, 2016, according to court filings.

Dillon City Manager Glen Wagner said Gonzalez received a $400,000 settlement from police.

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Have you lost property through civil forfeiture? Or do you have information about the practice we should know? We'd like to hear about it. Contact our reporters at taken@greenvillenews.com.

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