Using loophole, Seward County seizes millions from motorists without convicting them of crimes
Four hundred and fifty-five miles of Interstate 80 run through Nebraska. But one 24-mile stretch has become nationally known – or notorious – for a type of traffic stop that sends millions to a single Nebraska county and its sheriff’s department.
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One of every three state civil asset forfeiture seizures happen in this county, pop. 17,962
June 16, 2023 2:07 pmContributing Publisher
SEWARD, Neb. (Flatwater Free Press, Natalia Alamdari) – Four hundred and fifty-five miles of Interstate 80 run through Nebraska.
But one 24-mile stretch has become nationally known – or notorious – for a type of traffic stop that sends millions to a single Nebraska county and its sheriff’s office.
In August 2020, flashing police lights stopped Christopher Bouldin’s van on this short ribbon of road as he headed west through Seward County.
Within minutes, Bouldin found himself standing with his dog on the westbound shoulder.
Seward County deputies had just found $18,000 in cash rolled up in a blue sleeping bag in his backseat. It’s drug money, they alleged. It’s money for my trip to Colorado, Bouldin responded.
There, on the side of the road, 1,300 miles from his Virginia home, in a state where Bouldin knew no one, a sheriff’s deputy handed him a form.
You can sign this piece of paper, abandon the $18,000, avoid arrest and continue on to Colorado, he says he was told.
Don’t sign, and you will go to jail. You could face felony charges. Your van will be towed. Your dog will be taken to the pound.
“They were trying really hard for me to sign that,” Bouldin said.
Traffic stops like these, where passing motorists are pulled over, searched and asked to turn over any cash that’s found, are big business in Seward County, population 17,692.
Here, money is routinely seized without anyone being charged or proven guilty of anything.
The sheriff’s office has specialized in and perfected the practice, known as civil asset forfeiture, despite a 2016 law meant to ban it in Nebraska.
One out of every three civil forfeiture cases in Nebraska’s state courts happens in Seward County, according to a Flatwater Free Press analysis of a decade of court records and a data request provided by the Nebraska Judicial Branch.
Nearly all begin when a Seward deputy stops a driver on I-80. Nearly all involve an out-of-state driver. And nearly all the seized money ends up in law enforcement hands, after drivers – faced with a split-second choice between money or jail – sign the form and abandon their cash.
In the past five years, Seward County law enforcement has hauled in $7.5 million from forfeitures, according to county financial records and Department of Justice annual reports.
That’s second in the state only to Lancaster County, which has a population nearly 20 times larger.
Some of that money comes from criminal cases, where a person has drugs or guns in the car and is eventually convicted.
But, in Seward County, much of that money pours in from civil forfeiture cases like Bouldin’s.
Many in law enforcement, including Seward County Sheriff Mike Vance, say civil forfeiture is an important tool to take money, drugs and weapons out of the hands of criminals.
“The point is that we’re trying to dismantle these criminal organizations,” said Amy Blackburn, an assistant U.S. attorney. “You can maybe take off a load of drugs, but if you take off their money, you’re crippling their ability to conduct their criminal activity.”
To defense attorneys and advocates, civil asset forfeiture is little more than a law enforcement money grab.
It’s a practice, they say, that allows police and prosecutors to avoid going after drug kingpins and instead prey on individual citizens – who may or may not have done anything wrong.
“Citizens can have their property taken from them without ever being accused of a crime, or convicted of a crime, and that is simply not our American system of justice,” said Louis Rulli, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s led to so many abuses.”
Bouldin didn’t know any of this as he stood on the westbound shoulder of I-80, wondering what he should do, wondering if his next decision would make his $18,000 disappear or land him in jail.
One thought, he says, kept repeating on a loop in his head.
“I can’t believe I’m getting robbed.”
Bouldin challenged the forfeiture up to the Nebraska Supreme Court, but ultimately lost his money. Photos courtesy of Christopher Bouldin
Christopher Bouldin’s $18,000 zipped into an evidence bag, after Seward County deputies searched his rental van and found the rolled-up cash.
No drugs. No weapons. Lots of cash.
It started when Bouldin got pulled over for following too closely.
The deputy first asked Bouldin to sit in the patrol car while he printed the traffic violation warning.
Then he asked if he could search Bouldin’s rental van.
Bouldin refused, as he’s legally allowed to do. That’s when the deputy summoned a drug dog. A sniff of the car indicated the presence of drugs, giving deputies probable cause for a search.
They didn’t find drugs. They didn’t find weapons.
They did find Bouldin’s $18,000.
“I was planning on going to the casino and gambling, and just having a good vacation, possibly buying a car out there,” Bouldin told the Flatwater Free Press.
He also said he was going to buy marijuana – legal in Colorado – but only for personal use while there.
If he’d been stopped elsewhere in Nebraska, he might have been written a traffic ticket and told to carry on with his drive. Not in Seward County.
“It appears that Seward County is making this a focal point of their enforcement tactics. Because I don’t see it very often from any other counties along the interstate,” said Daniel Stockmann, a Nebraska defense attorney who specializes in interstate drug cases. “It doesn’t surprise me that Seward County is the leading county in these types of proceedings.”
In the past decade, Seward has seized money in at least 90 state civil forfeiture cases, nearly double any other Nebraska county. In those cases, they initially seized a total of $2.2 million from motorists.
Drivers rarely fight to get their money back. Those who do rarely win, according to court records.
The $2 million kept by the county was split. Half went to a state fund for schools. Half went to a county fund overseen by a board of police chiefs, the Nebraska State Patrol, the county attorney and the sheriff.
Records from meetings of that board, held at a Pizza Kitchen in Milford, detail how they decided to spend the seized dollars.
They bought stun guns and bulletproof vests for the Seward and Milford Police Departments. They bought a sheriff’s cruiser with the words “Paid for by drug proceeds” emblazoned on the back. They bought an $18,000 drone for the Nebraska State Patrol. And they recently spent $15,000 on two ballistic shields, bought after the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
“It’s in-need things that would have ordinarily come out of the general budget,” said Blake Swicord, coordinator of the Seward-based Homeland Security task force. “It saves the taxpayers money.”
The highway seizures that net this money often start when a Seward County deputy alleges a minor traffic violation – a car speeding, or improperly changing lanes, or like Bouldin, following too closely.
“We stop people for those three contributing factors a lot, all day long,” Swicord said. “And then we assess them.”
The deputy will issue a warning or ticket for the traffic violation, often asking drivers to sit in the patrol car while they complete paperwork.
They’ll ask basic questions. Where are you headed? What do you plan to do there?
The goal: looking for “indicators of criminal activity,” said Seward County Sheriff Mike Vance.
“The passenger and the driver may not know each other very well,” Vance said. “Sometimes, you ask them where they’re headed to, they don’t know … they borrowed the car, they don’t know the name of the person who owns the car. Things like that will raise flags.”
As deputies ask questions, they pay attention. Does the person seem nervous? Do they have a prior criminal record? How much luggage do they have? Can the deputy smell drugs? Does the vehicle have an air freshener hanging from their rearview mirror?
“All of that becomes part of a math equation,” Swicord said.
Seward, NEB. — 5/24/2023 — A Seward County Deputy in a discreetly marked k-9 unit pulls over a Mercedes SUV during the noon hour Wednesday, May 24, 2023 just West of Nebraska Highway 15 on Eastbound Interstate 80. ERIC GREGORY, Flatwater Free Press.
Defense attorneys and advocates argue those indicators can be weak. One 2016 case in Seward County cited a “large amount of fast food wrappers in the vehicle” as an indicator. Another in 2015 cited a “six pack of Red Bull energy drinks.”