A federal appeals court just restored a New York woman’s chance to win back thousands of dollars that authorities seized in the belief that it was connected to a crime.
This act is called civil asset forfeiture. It allows law enforcement to seize property suspected of being connected to a criminal offense without charging the owner with a crime.
Cristal Starling was, in fact, never charged with a crime when her money was taken. In October 2020, local police in Rochester raided her apartment because her then-boyfriend was suspected of dealing drugs. Police never cited Starling with any offenses, but even after her boyfriend was acquitted, authorities kept the $8,040 they seized.
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Starling, who owned a food cart at the time, had planned to use that money to purchase a food truck. She assumed that since it had been proven the money wasn’t connected to any crime, it would be returned to her. However, the Rochester Police Department transferred her money to the Drug Enforcement Administration, where it’s been ever since.
In the years since that incident, Starling has been working on her own to fight against the forfeiture. Without legal assistance, she was able to navigate the process. She notified the Justice Department that she was challenging the forfeiture, but she missed the deadline to file a notice in federal court, which permits the government to move to forfeit her money by default.
So, in February 2022, a district court judge ruled that she wouldn’t be able to salvage her money because she missed that single filing deadline. She wrote letters requesting an extension, but the judge decided she had not demonstrated excusable neglect and awarded her money to the government.
Her case was dead in the water until she partnered with…
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