Glorieta man files lawsuit against Santa Fe over vehicle seizure
Complaint says ‘city erected a web of arbitrary fines and fees’ to confiscate property
A Glorieta man has filed a lawsuit in state District Court accusing the city of Santa Fe of unlawfully seizing and attempting to forfeit his vehicle in 2018.
Bernard Lucero’s complaint — which he is seeking to have designated as a class-action suit on behalf of others whose vehicles were seized by the city after February 2018 — accuses the city of creating forfeiture policies designed to bring in money that could be spent on police department operations.
“The city erected a web of arbitrary fines and fees” to accomplish this, Lucero says in his complaint, filed Jan. 22.
“The program seized nearly 500 cars a year,” says Lucero’s complaint, which alleges an attorney had bragged at a civil forfeiture conference in 2014 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 was referring to a conference in Santa Fe in which former Las Cruces city attorney Harry S. Connelly Jr. was captured on video encouraging law enforcement officials and lawyers to think about how forfeiture laws can be exploited. A story about the incident appeared on the front page of the New York Times.
At the same conference, Lucero’s complaint says, a Santa Fe police officer reported seizing “showpiece” cars for the department. “And other officials spoke of the potential under nuisance abatement laws to seize people’s homes, bikes, and airplanes boasting: ‘We can be czars. We can own the city.’ ”
City spokeswoman Lilia Chacon declined to comment on the case Thursday. “The City can not comment on pending litigation,” she said in an email.
New Mexico sparked a nationwide trend in 2015 when it banned civil forfeiture — becoming the first state to end the practice of seizing and selling the property of people who had been accused, though not convicted, of a crime.
But for several years after that, Santa Fe continued to operate a program that allowed officials to keep or sell vehicles of people accused but not convicted in certain DWI cases.
The city seized 473 vehicles under its ordinance in 2017, according to data provided by a spokesman in 2018. Some 274 were returned to owners, in some cases with the condition that they install an ignition interlock. About 145 of the vehicles were sold at auction, netting the city about $496,755.
The city suspended the practice in December 2018 after the state Court of Appeals found a similar civil forfeiture ordinance in Albuquerque was not allowed under state law.
But Lucero’s complaint says the city kept his 1995 Ford Econoline van, which he used to operate is plumbing business, for four months after the Court of Appeals ruling.
Lucero says he was not driving drunk when police impounded his vehicle, but had three prior DWI charges and was driving on a lapsed license due to problems obtaining a new license under the state’s federally approved Real ID license guidelines.
Lucero is seeking unspecified damages for himself and an order from the court directing the “unconditional return” of any vehicles seized under the city’s forfeiture program.