Cops Raid Medical Marijuana Patient, Take Her Vibrator in Asset Forfeiture
When the cops raided Ginnifer Hency’s home in Smiths Creek, Michigan, last July, “they took everything,” she told state legislators on Tuesday, including TV sets, ladders, her children’s cellphones and iPads, even her vibrator. They found six ounces of marijuana and arrested Hency for possession with intent to deliver, “even though I was fully compliant with the Michigan medical marijuana laws,” which means “I am allowed to possess and deliver.” Hency, a mother of four with multiple sclerosis, uses marijuana for pain relief based on her neurologist’s recommendation. She also serves as a state-registered caregiver for five other patients.
Hency’s compliance with state law explains why a St. Clair County judge last week dismissed the charges against her. But when she asked about getting back her property last Friday, she reported, “The prosecutor came out to me and said, ‘Well, I can still beat you in civil court. I can still take your stuff.’” When she heard that, Hency said, “I was at a loss. I literally just sat there dumbfounded.”
Hency told her story at a meeting of the Michigan House Judiciary Committee, which was considering several bills that would make this sort of legalized larceny more difficult. She was joined by Annette Shattuck, another medical marijuana patient who was raided by the St. Clair County Drug Task Force around the same time.
“After they breached the door at gunpoint with masks, they proceeded to take every belonging in my house,” Shattuck said. The cops’ haul included bicycles, her husband’s tools, a lawn mower, a weed whacker, her children’s Christmas presents, cash (totaling $85) taken from her daughter’s birthday cards, the kids’ car seats and soccer equipment, and vital documents such as driver’s licenses, insurance cards, and birth certificates. “How do you explain to your kids when they come home and everything is gone?” Shattuck asked. She added that her 9-year-old daughter is now afraid of the police and “cried for weeks” because the cops threatened to shoot the family dog during the raid. Although “my husband and I have not been convicted of any crime,” Shattuck said, they cannot get their property back, and their bank accounts remain frozen.
http://truthvoice.com/2015/05/cops-raid-medical-marijuana-patient-take-her-vibrator-in-asset-forfeiture/
http://www.house.mi.gov/MHRPublic/PlayVideoArchive.html?video=JUDI-052615.mp4
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