DA Returns Illegally Seized Cash

DA Jason Hicks

DA Jason Hicks

(TMR Note: This is another one of those stories that should make your blood boil. It appears to be chic to some in law enforcement units to seize cash during traffic stops and keep it even though no charges are ever filed against the motorist. That’s wrong on every level. This is the story of several such illegal seizures.)

Nolan Clay
The Oklahoman

HINTON — A district attorney is returning funds in three more cases where his drug task force took money from travelers on Interstate 40.

Two of the three cases involved stops where money was seized, but no one was arrested. A total of $21,227 is being returned in the three cases.

“I was really, really very scared,” said Julius S. Crooks, 28, who is getting back $7,500 and a semi-automatic rifle.

He was stopped in January on the way home to California from visiting family in Alabama. He was not arrested.

District Attorney Jason Hicks agreed Thursday to return the funds in the three cases, dropping efforts to have the money forfeited to law enforcement use. He had alleged cash found in the stops was drug money.

Prosecutors earlier dropped criminal cases arising from other drug stops. They also returned nearly $17,000 and a vehicle seized in those stops.

Hicks is under fire for hiring a private company, Desert Snow LLC, to assist in his drug interdiction effort.

After hiring the Guthrie company in January, his task force seized more than $1 million in the stops, mostly along a 21-mile stretch of I-40 in Caddo County. Hicks agreed to pay the company 25 percent of all forfeited proceeds from stops involving its trainers.

Critics said the arrangement led to instances where money was seized from cars for trumped-up reasons.

“The Constitution was suspended in Caddo County,” said Oklahoma City attorney Mark Myles, who represented Crooks.

Hicks halted his drug interdiction effort immediately after a judge became upset with it July 2.

“I’m shocked,” the judge said after learning Desert Snow’s owner pulled over a pregnant woman and questioned her, even though he is not a state-certified law enforcement officer.

‘I believe I have done everything right’

Hicks is the district attorney in Caddo, Grady, Jefferson and Stephens counties. “I believe I have done everything right,” he told The Oklahoman July 18.

Hicks declined Friday to explain why he is returning money in the three latest cases.

“I’ve taken the position that I’m not going to comment on anything else until … we’ve had the opportunity to review everything,” Hicks said.

Hicks said he does not plan to return nearly $850,000 seized in one stop in May. No one was arrested in that stop.

“I hope that people don’t have the impression that the guys from Desert Snow were up on the highway running around by themselves, because they weren’t,” he said.

He said an investigator from his task force “was right there with them the entire time.”

About the stop

The first traffic stop that led to money being seized was the one involving Crooks.

The Oklahoma attorney general’s office is investigating Crooks’ claim that the task force seized $7,900 from him. Crooks on Friday provided The Oklahoman a photo of a receipt showing $7,900 in $20 bills was taken.

Prosecutors reported the task force took $7,500.

Under review in the attorney general’s investigation is whether someone stole $400 after the stop or whether the money was miscounted.

Crooks said he, a cousin and a friend were traveling in a new rental car, with a paper plate, when they were pulled over in Oklahoma, twice within five minutes.

Participating in the second stop was a Desert Snow employee named Jason Henderson. Crooks said an officer Henderson was the one who questioned them.

“He was like, ‘You all are riding down one of the most notorious drug highways … with no plates … So do you have … in the car large amounts of U.S. currency?’ I told them, ‘Yes, I have money.’ … As soon as they learned I had money, they were so persistent in checking our vehicle,” Crooks recalled. “You should have seen how their eyes lit up.”

Crooks, a security guard, said an uncle loaned him the money to buy a car. He said he bought the rifle on impulse while shopping with his father, a hunter. He said both the money and the rifle, which was disassembled, were in a bag in the back of the car.

“They tore our whole car up. … They just like violated all our stuff. They stepped on our food, poured out our drinks, everything. It was just like very rude,” Crooks said. “It was just crazy, like we were real live drug dealers. And I’ve never been in trouble with any of that.”

Prosecutors alleged traces of marijuana were in the bag with the money. Crooks disputes that, saying he would have been put in jail if drugs were found.

Crooks said he tried to ask questions about why the money was taken. He said the district attorney’s chief investigator, Lewis Garrison, “got mad … put his finger in my face and said, ‘You better get the hell off my freeway and right now!’”

He said he went to the Caddo County courthouse to try to get his money back the next morning and got in another confrontation with Garrison.


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  1. ForrestCOuntry, 29 July, 2013

    Sounds like the level of accountability needs to be raised considerably. Wonder what a grand jury would find within the DA’s area of responsibility!

  2. Steve Dickson, 29 July, 2013

    Reasons for removal from office (Title 22, Chapter 23, Section 1181):

    1. Habitual or willful neglect of duty.
    2. Gross partiality in office.
    3. Oppression in office.
    4. Corruption in office.
    5. Extortion or willful overcharge of fees in office.
    6. Willful maladministration.
    7. Habitual drunkenness.
    8. Failure to produce and account for all public funds and property in his hands, at any settlement or inspection authorized or required by law.

    Who can enforce the above:

    Multicounty Grand Jury
    Citizens Grand Jury
    Board of County Commissioners

    This sort of behavior needs to be punished to the full extent of the law. The police are not a gang with the right to search people traveling and steal their cash and/or assets. We have lost control of our government – time to take it back.

  3. Norma, 29 July, 2013

    Ahhh! But you are wrong Steve Dickson. These task forces are within the law. The “Forfeiture Laws”.
    All money that has been in circulation has traces of marijuana and cocaine on it. So if they did an analysis they would find this and then the money “is guilty” of the crime of being close to drugs.
    Forfeiture and Seizure are a civil action against the property that touched the drugs. Hence no charges to the individual.
    Law Enforcement knows that most travelers will not spend the amount of money it takes to travel back and forth plus the expense of an attorney to “TRY” to get their money back.
    Our law enforcement knows that most likely 50% of the time they will find something that will allow them to take your car and or your money. They are “hooked” on this money. I remember a few years ago when a reporter said ” 75 out of 77 counties in our State could not meet payroll without Forfeiture. Forfeiture Laws are a VERY NASTY outcropping of the drug war!

  4. Charlotte Crowder, 24 August, 2013

    Hicks fancies himself the Sherrif of Nottinham. This is nothing more than modern highway robbery. Find the thug that was paid off with the missing $400. Try Hick’s pocket first, although I’m sure his cut was much higher. My advice, don’t travel I40. Unless you want to find drugs mysteriously appear in your car.

  5. Tom Elmore, 08 September, 2015

    Infuriating.

    Better pay attention, folks – and get a real good load of what this DA is shoveling. You could be next.

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