DRUG-STAINED CASH WIDESPREAD IN SOUTH FLORIDA

Broward County sheriff's deputies seized $1,589 from a trespassing suspect
in April after drug-sniffing dogs detected traces of drugs on the money.

Last week, Circuit Judge Robert Lance Andrews told them to give it back.

Andrews' rationale: South Florida's cash supply is so infected with illicit
drugs that law enforcement officials can't seize money just because a
police dog doesn't like its smell.

"It is easily conceivable that anyone in South Florida who was carrying
U.S. currency would `alert' a narcotics-sniffing dog," Andrews wrote in his
ruling on the case.

Nationally, critics say cash seizures are becoming increasingly common --
to the point that law enforcement agencies rely on them to purchase extras
for their departments. But Andrews says decisions like his to strike down
such forfeitures are also on the rise.

"Appellate courts are moving in the direction I'm moving," Andrews said. "I
think [law enforcement agencies] are abusing forfeiture statutes. . . .
There is a lot of money involved."

The Broward sheriff's officials, which seized $1 million last year, did not
return phone calls. The money seized last year helped pay for extra school
resource officers, crime prevention programs and drug abuse education.

In the ruling, Andrews cites studies by toxicologists, other court cases,
and even a 1985 Herald story describing how $20 bills were taken from
community leaders -- including then-Dade County State Attorney Janet Reno,
Jeb Bush, the Archbishop of Miami, former Broward Sheriff Nick Navarro and
others.

ALL TAINTED

Every one of the bills, except Navarro's -- which had just come from the
bank -- tested positive for narcotics.

"I think Judge Andrews made the right decision -- you can find drug-tainted
money in anyone's wallet," Navarro said. "Cocaine is a powder, so it gets
on everything, and as an undercover officer, I remember seeing people roll
up bills and use them as straws to snort lines of cocaine."

In the case before Andrews, the money was seized from Rosendo Louis, who
was sitting in front of an unoccupied house in Pompano Beach when he was
arrested and charged with trespassing. Sheriff's officials said there had
been complaints of drug activity in the area, but they weren't responding
to a specific complaint when they arrested Louis, who has a record of drug
arrests.

Sheriff's officials searched Louis and found $1,589, mostly in small bills,
which they said was consistent with street-level drug dealers.

A drug-sniffing dog detected the narcotics on the money.

The sheriff's office asked Andrews to approve their seizure of the money
under laws that allow police to confiscate money or property used in the
commission of a felony.

Seizures are a civil proceeding that carry a lighter burden of proof than a
criminal case, so a defendant can be found innocent of a crime but still
have their money or property seized as a result of their arrest.

Money can become tainted when it is packaged with drugs, when a user rolls
up a bills and uses it as a straw to snort powdered drugs, or when a drug
user who has residue on their hands simply handles the bills.

DRUGS SOAK IN

"Especially here in this humid climate, it soaks right in," said Jack
Denaro, a Miami criminal defense attorney who was the first to prove just
how tainted the South Florida money supply was.

Denaro was defending an accused drug dealer in 1985, and a key piece of
evidence against the man was the fact that police dogs found drugs on the
money. After researching drug-sniffing dogs, Denaro quickly realized he
wouldn't be able to attack their accuracy in court.

"The dogs are excellent, so there was no way I could go into court and say
the dogs would alert on something other than drugs," Denaro said. "So the
alternative was that maybe they're ultra-sensitive, they'll alert on things
that have only microscopic traces of drugs. It was just a theory, so I
decided to test it."

So Denaro sent a chemist to withdraw money from several banks throughout
Dade County, then test it. Nearly all of the cash tested positive for
narcotics.

"After we did it here . . . it became a legal standard over time," Denaro said.

Navarro argues that the money in South Florida is as tainted by drugs now
as it was more than a decade ago; Fort Lauderdale defense attorney Kevin
Kulik, who was a Broward prosecutor in the mid-1980s and now handles drug
cases and forfeitures, said maybe not.

"It's a totally different thing these days," Kulik said. "I would still
expect a large percentage of the currency to be tainted. But back then,
powder cocaine was so much more prevalent, and it was a drug of affluent
people. There was no such thing as crack rock, which is what's really taken
over now."

Herald staff writer David Green contributed to this report.