Posted on 06/23/2005 5:25:35 AM PDT by Cagey
A Quincy woman who tried to board a plane at Logan International Airport in February with $46,950 stuffed inside her bra says she was heading to Texas for plastic surgery on her buttocks and breast.
But, in a lawsuit filed yesterday, Ileana Valdez said a male Drug Enforcement Administration agent told her she had a ''nice body" and didn't need any surgery -- then seized the cash, claiming it was drug money.
Valdez, 26, a single mother who was born in the Dominican Republic and is a US citizen, is petitioning to get the cash back in the suit filed yesterday in US District Court in Boston against the DEA. Her suit says she has no criminal record.
''How can you make a determination that people don't need cosmetic surgery?" said Boston lawyer Tony V. Blaize, who filed the suit on behalf of Valdez. ''I can't tell Michael Jackson he doesn't need more plastic surgery, even though I don't think he does."
Anthony Pettigrew, a spokesman for the DEA in Boston, said he couldn't comment on the lawsuit. But he said that federal asset forfeiture laws allow agents to seize suspected drug profits.
Although passengers have to file a currency report if carrying $10,000 or more in cash out of the country, they don't have to file such reports while traveling within the United States, Pettigrew said.
In her suit, Valdez says she earned the money from selling a Dorchester multi-service business and two parcels of property in Jamaica Plain. She said she withdrew all of her money from the bank to prevent creditors from getting the cash.
Blaize said Valdez was stopped while she was passing through a metal detector.
''I don't know why she was carrying it in her bra," said Blaize,
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
I hope that she wins and that the DEA agent gets canned.
That's unbelievable. I didn't realize that you were guilty until proven innocent in this country nowdays.
$46,000 stuffed in her bra?
Just curious. Were they all $1 bills?
Maybe she was a stripper who hadn't changed her clothes in a while.
She'll never get a cent of it back
Everything is fair when it comes to the WOD.
Well, as much as I hate my Credit Card company, my creditors did not force me to make any purchases, and therefore deserve to be paid back.
But she still has a point: We should not have to produce records and statements to prove that the money we have on our person was not gained by illicit means.
That's it. Just a "claim"?
Unbelievable...
Of course it was drug money (or otherwise illegally obtained), but that is no reason to trash the Constitution.
The feds will get you one way or another. Unfortunately.
I should have said, the feds will get you one way or another except if you're Whitey Bulger.
In her suit, Valdez says she earned the money from selling a Dorchester multi-service business and two parcels of property in Jamaica Plain. She said she withdrew all of her money from the bank to prevent creditors from getting the cash.
So, she was going to have plastic surgery instead of paying off debts. That alone leaves me no choice but to believe the DEA agent. Anyone stupid enough to carry $46,000 around in an airport deserves to be locked up. In this case the DEA agent was doing his job, Oh by the way, I'd like to see exactly what she sold, she's to stupid to be in real estate.
You protest way too much!
Of course, the lady had over 50,000 before she went through the tolls into Boston ...
If your plan of locking up people for stupidity goes through, be prepared to spend mucho dollars for millions of new jail cells.
If giving back my tax cut means that someone this stupid can be put away. By all means take it back. I'd like to know what set off the metal detector, cash won't do it.
Oops, I see she got the money from some land sales and she withdrew it to keep from having to pay her existing debts. She should be thrown in jail.
"Anyone stupid enough to carry $46,000 around in an airport deserves to be locked up"
In 1982 I withdrew $55,000 from my bank account which was the balance on an airplane I purchased and flew on Southwest to Phoenix to pay for it and pick it up.
What's so stupid about that?
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