Finders keepers of Okanogan drug money
An Okanogan County couple are entitled to keep $507,070 in drug money they found along a roadside, a judge has ruled.
But Dan and Jane Gerth may not get the money – which they turned over to the Okanogan County Sheriff’s Office – for two or three years while the county appeals this week’s ruling by visiting Chelan County Superior Court Judge T.W. “Chip” Small. The sheriff’s office had asked Small to give it the cash instead.
A man who was suspected of involvement in related drug transactions also had sought the money, but he withdrew his claim after being acquitted of a money-laundering charge in June.
Authorities believe David Lee Taber Jr., 36, was involved in a drug transaction on March 8, 2004, when he parked at a roadside pullout near Ellisforde, about 16 miles south of the Canadian border, and retrieved a backpack from a nearby ditch.
The Gerths had already found the backpack, and sheriff’s deputies had removed the cash by the time Taber got there. Officers were hiding nearby and arrested Taber when he picked up the backpack.
Taber was charged with money laundering because he wasn’t caught with drugs, but Okanogan County Superior Court Judge Jack Burchard said money laundering requires evidence of efforts to “invest, transfer, conceal or dispose of illegal proceeds.” However, Burchard said there was “overwhelming proof” the money was tied to illegal drugs.
The bills even smelled like marijuana, Burchard said.
Judge Small agreed the money came from drug trafficking but ruled the state’s found-property law trumps the law that allows police agencies to keep the ill-gotten fruits of drug transactions to use in fighting the drug trade.
Sheriff Frank Rogers said he would like to have the money to make up for major cuts in federal funding for the Okanogan-Ferry County Drug Task Force that forced him to lay off a detective and a clerk last year. The task force used to receive about $213,000 a year, but it got only about $60,000 last year.
Still, Rogers said Friday he doesn’t begrudge the Gerths their good fortune. They reported the money and filed their claim “by the book,” he said.
“It would be nice to have that kind of money to work for us to do our work, but it’s not like they took it out of my back pocket,” Rogers said. “And they’re good people.”
While the Gerths wait to find out whether they actually will receive the money – which has gained about $7,000 in interest since it was found – Rogers is waiting to learn whether he will get $118,134 worth of drug money found in a small airplane that crashed in April 2003 in the Pasayten Wilderness.
Burchard ruled last July that the money was part of a marijuana smuggling operation, but the estate of one of the two men who died in the crash is appealing the judge’s decision.