CONTACT: Whitney Potter (505) 266 5915 ext. 1003, Cell (505) 507 9898
Albuquerque—Truck driver Anastasio Prieto wants his $23,700 back, and the ACLU has pledged to help him.
On August 8, 2007, Prieto pulled into a weigh-station on NM Highway 54, north of El Paso, where a state police officer asked if he could search Prieto’s truck and if it contained “needles or cash in excess of ten thousand dollars.” Prieto consented to the search and replied that, while he did not have any needles, he did have nearly $24,000 in his possession.
To Prieto’s astonishment, officers took his money and turned it over federal Drug Enforcement Administration officials. Border Patrol agents searched the truck with drug-sniffing dogs but found no evidence of illicit substances.
Nevertheless, DEA agents photographed and fingerprinted Prieto, despite his objections, then sent him on his way, without his money and without any criminal charges against him.
Today the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico filed civil rights claims on Prieto’s behalf against three state and three federal officers regarding the incident.
“The government took Mr. Prieto’s money as surely as if he had been robbed on a street corner at night,” said Peter Simonson, Executive Director for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico. “In fact, being robbed might have been better. At least then the police would have treated him as the victim of a crime instead of as a perpetrator.”
DEA agents informed Prieto that he will receive notice of federal proceedings to permanently forfeit the money within thirty days. To recuperate the funds, Prieto will need to prove in an administrative hearing that the money truly is his, and that it did not derive from illegal drug sales. Agents told Prieto that the process would probably take a year.
“Mr. Prieto doesn’t have a year,” Simonson said. “He needs the money back now—to pay bills, to maintain his truck. We’re insisting that the government give the money back immediately and that it purges all records of Mr. Prieto from the DEA’s files.”
ACLU attorneys Cid Lopez, George Bach, and Maureen Sanders filed the suit in federal court.
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