Feds grab $15,000 in cash from mom’s ‘quince’ savings
Miladis Salgado worked in the duty-free shop at Miami International Airport, squirreling away thousands of dollars in savings along with gifts from relatives to throw a “quince” party for her only daughter, who was turning 15.
She wanted the coming of age event to be a grand affair — at a banquet hall, with a DJ and a photographer. “It’s a lot of money for a party,” Salgado said.
But on a spring day five years ago, federal agents raided Salgado’s suburban Miami home on a tip that that her husband was suspected of dealing cocaine and seized $15,000 in cash from her bedroom closet that she had planned to use for her daughter’s quinceañera party. Agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration kept her and her daughter outside for five hours in the hot Miami sun.
“It was very frustrating,” said Salgado, who had been separated for years from her husband, who was only staying temporarily with the family. “They treated me like a delinquent.”
It would take two years for Salgado to recover her money from the DEA, which did not arrest her husband because agents discovered he had not been selling drugs after all. The lead DEA agent admitted in a court deposition that there was no evidence supporting the allegation.
However, there was a catch: Before a critical ruling in the civil forfeiture dispute with Salgado, Justice Department lawyers on their own decided to return her money. But at the same time, they argued that Salgado had not really won because a judge granted the feds the right to refile their civil case in the future — even though they probably had no intention of doing so. As a result, the government argued it did not have to pay her attorney’s fees, which she said amounted to $5,000.
Now, Salgado is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to make her whole for the misguided May 11, 2015, raid on her home, arguing that a forfeiture law allows victims of wrongful money seizures to recover at
torney’s fees in addition to their actual losses from the government. The outcome of a petition brought by the 57-year-old naturalized
U.S. citizen from Colombia could affect thousands of people nationwide whose money is seized by federal agencies without criminal charges ever being filed against them.
“This is a game that the Justice Department plays — it’s a war of attrition,” said lawyer Justin Pearson with the Arlington, Va.-based Institute for Justice, which is representing Salgado free of charge. “This is a cash grab by the government to take money away from people who don’t have the ability to fight back.”
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide in April whether to hear Salgado’s petition. After the solicitor general for the Trump administration signaled that he was not going to respond to her claim, the high court ordered his office to do so. In a recent filing, Solicitor General Noel Francisco asserts that Salgado had not “substantially prevailed” against the government, reasoning that when the feds returned her money, they did not lose the right to refile their civil forfeiture case and therefore did not owe her attorney’s fees.
It’s a technical argument that has broad implications for federal agencies such as the DEA that routinely seize millions of dollars from potential suspects who go uncharged — but then are forced to argue that the money is not from criminal activity if they hope to recover any of it.
With the help of her initial Miami lawyer, Juan Berrio, Salgado was able to fight back. But typically, most civil forfeiture victims cannot spend thousands of dollars and years in court in the hope of getting their property back from the government. According to the Institute for Justice’s report “Policing for Profit,” 88% of federal civil forfeitures are never decided by a judge. For most victims, the cost of hiring an attorney to contest the forfeiture in court is more than the value of their property, so their only real option is to agree to the government’s offer and walk away, said Pearson, who heads the institute’s Miami office..
In 2014, the Washington Post spotlighted the troubling trend of law enforcement’s seizing and forfeiting millions from thousands of suspects who never get charged with a crime.
Salgado, who not only works at the MIA duty-free shop but has a second job at a Subway sandwich shop, said her case is not just about money.
“It’s important, it’s not fair they trample [on our] rights,” she said. “It doesn’t have to happen to others. I understand there’s a lot of delinquency, but they need to be more careful.”
When the DEA grabbed the $15,000 in cash from the bedroom closet in her West Kendall home, Salgado could no longer afford the 15th birthday party, or quinceañera, for her daughter.
Salgado’s family celebrated her daughter’s birthday, but instead they took a less expensive cruise.
“We still took photos,” she said, “but not the ones we wanted.”