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Stop and Seize: When the NYPD Takes Your Car

Courtney Melvin loves her car. It’s a 2005 Mercedes SUV, black, with lightly-tinted windows. She bought it herself, and she’s proud of it.

"I’m a young black female, I’m a nurse," she said. "I worked hard for my car, I worked hard for everything I have."

Which is partly why she was so incensed when police seized her car last September. She and a friend were buying an Icee in Coney Island, she said. Some teenagers accused them of taking a cell phone – which Melvin said wasn't true. The teens called the police. Melvin said that officers surrounded her truck and searched it. No phone was found, but police found a weapon on the back seat. Melvin denied it was hers.

A year later, she still couldn't believe what happened next. 

"When I went to the police station in Coney Island, they still wouldn’t give me my car, saying there was a hold on my car," she said. It was being held for forfeiture by the police.

Police seized about 2,400 cars last year, according to records received through a public records request made by Brooklyn Defender Services. There’s no public data on the reasons why. Court documents from forfeiture cases show drunk driving charges, along with weapons and drug possession.

A former school safety agent with the NYPD had her car seized when she was arrested for drunk driving. She doesn't understand why some people's cars are seized and others aren't.

"I've known people in the division that I worked with in the police department, who have gotten arrested for DUI, who have not gotten their cars taken away," she says.

Some 60,000 people are charged with DUI every year in New York City, according to a WNYC analysis of police records. The NYPD seized about 2,400 cars last year.

For Melvin, as for many drivers, losing a car is a big deal. She works in Staten Island, and found herself commuting by ferry, train and bus. 

There is a sort of bail hearing for cars, where drivers can ask for their car back while a criminal case is sorted out.

Thomas O’Brien, a lawyer at Legal Aid, brought the case, Krimstock v. Kelly, that created the hearing process. But fewer than 600 people requested a hearing last year, probably because that process can be confusing and opaque, involving lots of single-spaced forms and strict deadlines. The number of hearings actually held is tiny — just 15 last year, according to NYPD records. O’Brien said the cases that make it to a hearing are the tip of the iceberg. 

"Underneath the surface, there are many, many more cases where the police are just seizing cars, and if they give them back, it’s because people are giving them money," he said.

A cash settlement is usually between $500 and $2,500, attorneys told WNYC. Almost 300 people settled before their hearing in 2014. These forfeitures are a civil case, which means people don’t get public defenders. Most navigate the process with no attorney, because hiring someone often costs more than the car is worth.

Nominally, forfeiture takes the profit out of crime, said Steven Kessler, who works on forfeiture cases around the country, and literally wrote the book on civil forfeiture. He also used to run the forfeiture unit at the Bronx District Attorney’s office. 

But there’s another potential purpose: fundraising. The cars are often old, and the amounts forfeited can be low — as little as $3, in some cases.

"If I am the D.A., $3 is nothing. But three times how many in a week, times 52 weeks in a year, now we’re talking money," Kessler says. 

A man from Brooklyn was arrested after buying drugs on foot and returning to his parked car. His car was taken for forfeiture. He pled guilty to drug possession, and paid $2,000 to the NYPD to get his car back.

"I can understand if I was a drug distributor," he says. "Somebody gets pulled over for X amount of drugs inside the vehicle. But that's not even what happened."

How much money? More than $46 million last year. That money goes to drug treatment programs, and for a wide range of law enforcement purposes – including back to the district attorneys' offices. There is no public accounting of the cars or property the NYPD seizes, although a bill now before the City Council would change that.

Deterrence may be another motive for forfeiture – commit a crime, lose your car. But most people don’t know forfeiture exists until it happens to them, said Bill Bryan, a lawyer at Brooklyn Defender Services who has handled many forfeiture cases. Melvin was a client at Brooklyn Defender Services.

"If this is being done in New Yorkers’ names, because it’s a great deterrent, it would be great if it was something people knew was taking place," Bryan said.

Melvin did get her car, six months after her trip to the Icee store. Her friend pled to gun possession, and is serving eight months in Rikers. She said the gun wasn't his, but he faced five years if he risked a trial. Melvin took her case to trial, confident in her innocence. The case was dismissed.

 

Read part one of our series, on cash forfeitures.