Authorities at a Kentucky airport confiscated the life savings of student Charles Clarke in early 2014 on an unverified suspicion that the cash was connected to illicit drug sales. Now, the US has settled with Clarke, returning his $11,000 with interest.
Clarke was a 24-year-old college student headed to Florida in February 2014 when a ticketing agent at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport told police that that his luggage smelled like marijuana. An airport detective, a US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agent, and a drug-sniffing dog searched Clarke’s belongings, finding nothing illegal on him or in his bags.
Despite that, DEA Agent William Conrad and Detective Christopher Boyd seized the $11,000 in cash that Clarke was carrying – savings he had collected to pay for college – “upon probable cause that it was proceeds of drug trafficking or was intended to be used in an illegal drug transaction,” according to Conrad’s report of the incident.
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