Rudy Ramirez never expected to become a statistic in the War on Drugs when he set off to buy a used car, $7300 in cash at the ready, in January 2000.
Ramirez, who lives in Edinburg, Texas near the border with Mexico, had spotted a listing for the used Corvette in a magazine and wanted it badly
enough that he talked his brother-in-law into accompanying him on a thousand mile road trip to Missouri to make the purchase. When Ramirez was pulled
over by police in Kansas City, however, the tenor of the trip changed.
"They asked if I had any money with me, and I said yes," recalls Ramirez. "I didn't think they would take it away. I had nothing to hide." But the
trajectory of the rental car, and the piles of cash, suggested otherwise to police--who suspected him of trafficking drugs from the Mexican border. As
Ramirez tells it, he was detained at the side of the road for hours while his car was thoroughly searched and inspected by a drug dog. "They kept
asking me, `Where are the drugs?'" he recalls. "I told them they had the wrong guy."
The Drug Enforcement Agency's file on the case indicates that Ramirez gave officers confused statements about both the money and his destination, and
that his extremely brief stay in a Missouri motel looked suspicious. What's more, the drug dog "alerted" on parts of the car, indicating that drugs
could have been there at one time--which, since it was a rental car, may or may not have anything to do with Rudy Ramirez.
Still, the search turned up no drugs of any kind, and the officers finally told Ramirez that he was free to go--but not before confiscating $6,000 of
his money in the name of the federal war on drugs in a process known as "forfeiture." Despite check stubs that he says prove that the money came from
a car accident settlement reached several months before, and bank records showing that it was withdrawn from his account just prior to the Missouri
trip, Ramirez has, to this day, been unable to get his money returned. He shakes his head as he describes it. "All I want is my money back," he says.
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written on the inside cover of my lab notebook. THANK GOD I made one. Pages glued in, numbered and dated. It's what saved
me. I must say that the Fallon, NV Police and Fire Departments were quite professional and knowledgeable. (The officer was quite curious about my
electrolysis cell, and when i said it WASN'T Uncle Festers he smiled).
Laundry room counter, chems on the cabinet shelves above.
)
LOL, just kidding. I'll find some other more
legal ways to get chemistry info. Thanks though.
)