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Conflict of Laws Keyed to Brilmayer
Walden v. Fiore
Citation:
571 U.S. 277 (2014)Facts
Defendant, Anthony Walden, is a police officer for the city of Covington, Georgia. He was working at the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport as an agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in August 2006. On August 8th, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents searched Plaintiffs, Gina Fiore and Kieth Gipson, and their carry-on bags at the San Juan airport in Puerto Rico. The TSA agents found $97,000.00 in cash. Gina told DEA agents that she and Kieth had been gambling at the El San Juan casino. She also stated that they had residences in California and Nevada. After Gina and Kieth were cleared for departure, a law enforcement official at San Juan airport notified Walden’s task force in Atlanta that Gina and Kieth had boarded a plane for Atlanta, where they planned to get on another flight to Las Vegas, Nevada.
When Gina and Kieth arrived in Atlanta, Walden and another DEA agent approached them and asked questions, to which Gina responded that she and Kieth were professional gamblers. They maintained that the cash they were carrying was their gambling bank and winnings. Walden seized the cash after using a using a drug-sniffing dog to perform a sniff test. Walden told Gina and Kieth that their money would be returned if they proved a legitimate source for the cash. Gina and Kieth then boarded their plane to Las Vegas. Walden moved the cash to a secure location and the matter was forwarded to DEA headquarters. The next day, Walden received a phone call from Gina and Kieth’s attorney seeking the return of the cash.
Walden received documentation twice over the next month from the attorney regarding the legitimacy of the cash. During this time, Walden helped draft an affidavit to show probable cause for forfeiture of the funds and forwarded the affidavit to a U.S. Attorney’s Office in Georgia. Gina and Keith maintained that the affidavit was false and misleading because Walden misrepresented the encounter at the airport and omitted information regarding the lack of drug evidence and the legitimate source of the funds. No forfeiture complaint was filed, and the DEA returned the funds to Gina and Kieth in March 2007.
Gina and Kieth filed suit against Walden in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada, seeking money damages. They alleged that Walden violated their Fourth Amendment rights by seizing the cash without probable cause, keeping the money after concluding it did not come from drug-related activity, drafting and forwarding an affidavit to support a forfeiture action while knowing it contained false statements, seeking forfeiture while withholding exculpatory information, and withholding exculpatory information from the U.S. Attorney’s office.
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