A ruling that a lawyer believes allows the government to openly lie about its plans without any accountability is on its way to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Some 400 Los Angelenos whose Beverly Hills safety deposit boxes were broken into by the FBI have asked their attorney to appeal U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner’s opinion.
“Plaintiffs have certainly shown that the government had a dual motive in inventorying the contents of each deposit box, but that is not enough,” Klausner stated in his Sept. 29 ruling. “They must demonstrate that the improper inventory motive was the only reason that the government opened the safety deposit boxes and they have not done so. Thus, they have so far failed to show that the inventory was pretextual.”
Robert Frommer, attorney for the safety deposit box plaintiffs, argues that the ruling drives a Mack truck through the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
“It’s a recipe for abuse,” he said. “The District Court's ruling is profoundly wrong and dangerous. It creates a blueprint by which federal officials can systematically violate our rights and get off scot-free.”
As previously reported in the LA Times, FBI agents rummaged through 1,400 U.S. Private Vault safe deposit boxes that belonged to a musician, an interior designer, a physician, attorneys, construction workers, and others.
“They did it solely because they saw a hundred million dollars in cash, gold, and jewelry that they could civilly forfeit and it's important to remember that under forfeiture, the agencies who did this, the FBI and the DEA, get to keep that money,” Frommer told the Southern California Record. "That money goes into a special fund that those agencies alone can use.”
Although the FBI returned the belongings of Frommer’s clients, their names are still in the law enforcer's database. The lawsuit asks that the agencies expunge their personal information from their computers and files.
“The problem with civil forfeiture is that the government doesn't have to prove anything against you,” Frommer said. “If you look at these forfeiture cases that have been filed, they don't allege any real wrongdoing on the part of the box holder. Instead, they just simply say there are criminals at U.S. Private Vaults."
The five-day seizure of $86 million in cash, gold, silver, and jewelry occurred under the premise that U.S. Private Vaults allowed their clients to rent boxes anonymously and that drug suspects were seen visiting the strip mall storefront.
"My class is comprised of people whose stuff was taken, who identified themselves to the FBI, and who have gotten their property back," Frommer added. "That's about 400 people but there are several hundred other people who have found themselves stuck in forfeiture proceedings and having to prove their own innocence in order to keep their own property."