Forty-One Thousand Eighty Dollars ($41,080.00) v. State ex rel. Brandon Police Dep't
| Decision Date | 22 November 2022 |
| Docket Number | 2021-CA-00692-COA |
| Parties | FORTY-ONE THOUSAND EIGHTY DOLLARS ($41,080.00) IN UNITED STATES CURRENCY AND PABLO MENDEZ, JR. APPELLANTS v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI EX REL. BRANDON POLICE DEPARTMENT APPELLEE |
| Court | Mississippi Court of Appeals |
FORTY-ONE THOUSAND EIGHTY DOLLARS ($41,080.00) IN UNITED STATES CURRENCY AND PABLO MENDEZ, JR. APPELLANTS
v.
STATE OF MISSISSIPPI EX REL. BRANDON POLICE DEPARTMENT APPELLEE
No. 2021-CA-00692-COA
Court of Appeals of Mississippi
November 22, 2022
DATE OF JUDGMENT: 05/25/2021
COURT FROM WHICH APPEALED: RANKIN COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT HON. M. BRADLEY MILLS TRIAL JUDGE
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLANTS: JAD JAMAL KHALAF MERRIDA COXWELL AMMIE THI NGUYEN.
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE: CHRISTOPHER TODD McALPIN JOEY WAYNE MAYES MICHAEL SHELTON SMITH II.
MERRIDA COXWELL AMMIE THI NGUYEN ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE: CHRISTOPHER TODD McALPIN
BEFORE BARNES, C.J., McDONALD AND McCARTY, JJ.
BARNES, C.J.
¶1. OnFebruary25,2018, Sergeant Joseph French executed a traffic stop after observing a vehicle with an unreadable paper license tag traveling westbound on Interstate 20 (1-20). The driver of the vehicle was the appellant, Pablo Mendez Jr. Sergeant French, a narcotics officer with the Brandon Police Department, smelled "raw marijuana coming from [the] inside of the vehicle" while talking with Mendez through the open window. The officer also observed money secured by rubber bands in Mendez's lap. Mendez told the officer that he
had been visiting a friend in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and was headed home to Dallas, Texas. Mendez eventually admitted to having a small amount of marijuana in the vehicle, which the officer located in a bookbag on the front passenger seat. Although Mendez initially denied there was any additional currency in the car, Sergeant French discovered $41,080, which was sealed in Ziploc bags and concealed in the lining of a coat hanging on the driver's seat. Sergeant French determined that the vehicle had been registered to Mendez for only a few days before the traffic stop. Mendez was taken to the police station and questioned further. A K-9 unit alerted police that the $41,080, which police had hidden in a box, indicated the presence of drugs; so the funds were confiscated. The police issued Mendez a misdemeanor citation for the marijuana and released him.
¶2. On February 28, 2018, the State filed a petition seeking forfeiture of the $41,080 in seized funds under the Mississippi Uniform Controlled Substances Law. Miss. Code Ann. §§ 41-29-101 to -191 (Rev. 2018). The petition averred that Mendez had "denied any knowledge of the U.S. Currency and stated that the coat did not belong to him . . . but was left in his vehicle by a hitchhiker that he had earlier picked up."
¶3. Mendez filed his affirmative defenses on March 26, 2018, and the parties engaged in written discovery.[1] On May 8, 2019, Mendez pled guilty to a misdemeanor drug-possession
charge. Because this was his first offense, the charge was non-adjudicated and dismissed by the municipal court of the City of Brandon, Mississippi.[2]
¶4. On September 9, 2019, the State filed a motion for summary judgment and an application for entry of a default judgment. The Rankin County County Court entered a default judgment of forfeiture on September 17, 2019, against the "unknown owner" of the seized funds because the owner had "failed to plead or otherwise defend" in the action. In November 2019, the State and Mendez subsequently filed a joint ore tenus motion to set the matter for hearing on January 22, 2020, which the county court granted.
¶5. At trial, the State put on testimony from Sergeant French, Agent James Schuler, and Officer Jon Cooley. Deputy William Picou also testified as an expert in the fields of criminal interdiction, drug trafficking, and canine handling. In his testimony, Sergeant French explained that the reason for the traffic stop was due to his concern that the vehicle's paper tag was about to fly off. The officer's "dashcam" video was admitted into evidence and played for the court. Mendez had told Sergeant French that he was returning from visiting a friend in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, whose dad was in hospice and that he had stayed the night before (Saturday) in Birmingham, Alabama. Sergeant French said he "pick[ed] up on some deception" in Mendez's travel story, explaining:
[Mendez] was basically giving me what I believed at that point in time to be a rehearsed story because instead of just saying, no, I'm coming back from
Myrtle Beach. He also threw in something to say that I would sympathize more with him while he was on his travels. Something we normally see in the drug trafficking. Yes, it's some of the trade craft that they use.
When Sergeant French commented on the marijuana smell, Mendez initially claimed that he had a vape pen. But after further questioning, Mendez "admitted to having a small personal amount of marijuana in the vehicle," which the officer found in a bookbag on the front passenger seat. Sergeant French asked Mendez if he had any other drugs, guns, or large sums of United States currency in the vehicle; Mendez said no.
¶6. Regarding the vehicle's paper tag, Sergeant French testified that "[t]he vehicle was purchased either Wednesday or Thursday prior to the stop." The officer further noted that Mendez had been "issued a tag, an actual license plate for the vehicle that they sent him." This tag, however, had been swapped out after a traffic stop in another state, which the officer noted was indicative of the drug trade:
Like I was saying, he had the K tag, and shortly after the Louisiana stop the plate was switched and the registration. He was able to obtain an L tag which would be the next letter that's sequentially issued for the State of Texas.
We normally see that as drug trade craft because of modern technology, and [license plate readers] are set up in most states. They'll swap the registrations and tags in order to defeat law enforcement so that they don't see that it's the same person that's traveling.
While conducting a pat-down search of an extra-large coat hanging on the driver's seat, Sergeant French noted what felt like "a large sum of money that was hidden inside of the liner of the jacket." Two packages were inside the coat's zippered lining: "One of them was a vacuum sealed bag full of currency and the other one was a gallon[-]size [Z]iploc[] bag full
of currency. . . . [T]he currency was secured together by rubber bands and . . . the majority of the currency was in smaller denominations." Mendez had denied "having any large sums of U.S. currency in the vehicle." He claimed that a female hitchhiker had left the coat in his car. There was also "a paper bag that contained some CBD products" on the floorboard of the back seat, along with a receipt from North Carolina.
¶7. On cross-examination, Sergeant French acknowledged that Mendez was not a felon nor had any outstanding warrants, but the sergeant explained that "money couriers" for drug trafficking typically had "clean backgrounds" to make it "harder for law enforcement to seize those funds."
¶8. Agent Schuler, a certified K-9 handler, testified that Sergeant French asked him to "assist in searching the car and [to] run [his] dog on the currency." Four cardboard boxes were placed around a room at the police station, with the $41,080 in currency placed in one of the boxes by Sergeant French. The other boxes were empty. Agent Schuler's K-9, Max, "alerted [him] to the box that the money was in." Agent Schuler admitted that he had no knowledge of where the boxes were obtained.
¶9. Officer Cooley, an investigator with the Madison Police Department, testified that Sergeant French contacted him about the traffic stop and the discovery of the drugs and currency. Officer Cooley questioned Mendez, who claimed "that he was employed with a job at the [Dallas] Cowboy[s'] stadium." When Officer Cooley asked Mendez about the currency discovered in the vehicle, Mendez told him that a hitchhiker had left her jacket in
his car, which the officer "believed to be a pretty comical story[.]" The officer explained that it was common for couriers to attempt to distance themselves from any currency or drugs. For example, when asked about the receipt from North Carolina, Officer Cooley testified that "drug traffickers" will often "try to, you know, distance themselves" from a place that law enforcement might "know is a source city."
¶10. Deputy Picou was accepted by the county court as an expert in criminal interdiction, drug trafficking, and canine handling.[3] He testified that Interstate 20 is a major thoroughfare "for illegal drugs coming from the southwest border coming across [Mississippi] headed to the east coast." The deputy also noted that license plate readers cannot pick up a paper license tag. With regard to the packaging of the currency, Deputy Picou testified:
[I]t was vacuum sealed, one package vacuum sealed, one package in a [Z]iploc[] bag, all which were contained with rubber bands holding the money together. What makes that...
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