United States v. One 1950 Model Willys Jeep, Civ. No. 1050.

• Decision Date: 19 July 1950
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 1050.
• Citation: 91 F. Supp. 822
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. ONE 1950 MODEL WILLYS JEEP, MOTOR NO. 3J-41329 et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of South Carolina

91 F. Supp. 822

UNITED STATES v. ONE 1950 MODEL WILLYS JEEP, MOTOR NO. 3J-41329 et al.

Civ. No. 1050.

United States District Court W. D. South Carolina, Greenville Division.

July 19, 1950.

Oscar H. Doyle, U. S. Atty., Anderson S. C., and Walter H. Hood, Asst. U. S. Atty., Greenville, S. C., for plaintiff.

Thomas A. Wofford, Greenville, S. C., and Wyche, Burgess & Wofford, Greenville, S. C., for claimant, Ralph Coggins.

WYCHE, District Judge.

The government filed its libel of information seeking judgment of forfeiture of the two vehicles described in the caption of this action, alleging that they were used by Ralph Coggins in the removal, deposit and concealment of 72 gallons of untaxpaid distilled spirits, and that such use subjected them to forfeiture under the provisions of Sections 3116 and 3321, of Title 26 U.S.C.A.

Ralph Coggins filed an answer to the libel of information, in which he admitted all of the allegations of the libel which referred to the Ford Truck; alleged his ownership of the Willys Jeep, and denied the allegations of the libel that the Jeep was used as alleged in violation of the Internal Revenue Laws of the United States.

An Order has heretofore been entered adjudging forfeited the Ford Truck, and only the Willys Jeep is now involved.

Findings of Fact.

On March 13, 1950, at about 7:30 o'clock a. m., Investigators of the Alcohol Tax Unit saw the Ford Truck and the Jeep proceeding together, in the same direction, on State Highway Number 276, near Marietta, South Carolina, and followed them from a distance for a distance of about three miles to the home of Ralph Coggins in Greenville County, South Carolina. The Investigators were not close enough to the two vehicles to ascertain who was driving each, and when the Investigators came into the Coggins' yard no one was in either of the two vehicles. In the Ford Truck the Investigators found approximately 72 gallons of untaxpaid whiskey, contained in twelve cardboard cases, and each of the twelve cases contained twelve one-half gallon jars of whiskey. Four of the cases were contained in Hersey sugar sacks so cut and retied as to form a sort of basket for easy lifting of the cases. In the jeep, only recently purchased by Ralph Coggins for about $1,400, which he paid in currency, there was no whiskey nor materials proper or intended for use in the manufacture of whiskey, but there were four or five empty were Hersey sugar bags, on which there were fragments of mash and which smelled of whiskey, and one of the sugar bags in the Jeep had been fashioned and made into the form of a basket like the ones in the Ford Truck in which there were four cases of whiskey.

Ralph Coggins, testifying in support of his claim for the Jeep, admitted that in 1937 and in 1939 he had been convicted in this Court for violating the Internal Revenue Law relating to whiskey, that he had been convicted several times of similar offenses in the County Court, and that he was, prior to March 13, 1950, engaged in bootlegging. He admitted that a few days prior to March 13, 1950, he had furnished one Bill Darnell, whose name he at first was unwilling to disclose to the Court, for the purpose of buying for Coggins a quantity of bootleg liquor, and had furnished him approximately $240 in cash with which to buy it; that Bill Darnell was to use Coggins' house, but that no certain date had been set for Bill Darnell to go; that on the early morning of March 13, 1950, he, Coggins, went in his Jeep to the home of his brother, Clifton Coggins, about ten miles distant, to get his brother in order that they might work together in building a house for their mother; that because it was raining he and his brother agreed to wait until the following Saturday to do such work; that his brother gave him the sugar bags found in the Jeep in order that he, Ralph Coggins, a mechanic, might have some old rags to wipe grease from his hands in his mechanic work; that after he left his brother's home, it was only by pure coincidence that he drove in behind his own truck...