SF forfeiture suit seeks class action status
Litigation claims city used proceeds to fund police
SANTA FE — A lawsuit against the city of Santa Fe and police chief Andrew Padilla requests class action status and accuses the city of using the now-halted DWI forfeiture program to unlawfully confiscate vehicles from their owners and use the proceeds to help fund the police department.
The lawsuit also says unnamed city officials bragged about how much money the city was making from the forfeiture program and envisioning all the property they can seize from people, saying they could be
“czars” and “own the city.”
Bernard Lucero filed the lawsuit in Santa Fe District Court last week claiming the city unlawfully seized his car after a January 2018 traffic stop. Lucero wants a judge to declare the case a class action, opening the door for hundreds of people who had their cars seized by the Santa Fe Police Department under the city’s forfeiture program to have their cars immediately returned and claim other damages.
The lawsuit, filed by Albuquerque firm Kennedy, Kennedy and Ives, says the city used the forfeiture ordinance to help fund the police operations.
“The city erected a web of arbitrary fines and fees to be paid by vehicle owners and lienholders to fully fund the program with surplus monies placed in a special revenue fund to benefit the police department,” the lawsuit says. “The expectation was that forfeiture funds could be used to hire more police officers, increase overtime, and purchase equipment — including new police cars.”
The city put the ordinance on hold in December 2018 after the state Court of Appeals found that a similar ordinance in Albuquerque “completely contradicts” the state’s Forfeiture Act. The following month the appeals court found that Santa Fe’s ordinance also contradicted state law.
The state Forfeiture Act, passed in 2015, prohibits local governments from seizing a person’s vehicle before a criminal conviction, and it prohibits municipalities from keeping seized property or the proceeds from sales and auctions.
“Rather than complying with the law, the city ignored the amendments, seized hundreds of vehicles and brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars in the following fiscal year,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit says nearly 500 cars were seized between 2009, when the program was started, and 2014.
According to the lawsuit, in 2014 the city’s vehicle forfeiture attorney, who is not named, “bragged at a videotaped conference that Santa Fe had ‘realized a million dollars in revenues from forfeitures, fines, penalties and other things imposed in connection with these cases.’”
The lawsuit says at the same conference an SFPD officer reported seizing “showpiece” cars, and other officials spoke about the potential of seizing peoples’ homes, bikes and airplanes by boasting, “We can be czars. We can own the city.”
City government spokeswoman Lilia Chacon said the city doesn’t comment on pending legal action.