Pubdate: Mon, 06 Feb 2006
Source: Advocate, The (Norwalk, CT)
Copyright: 2006 Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc
Contact:  http://www.norwalkadvocate.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4022
Author: Zach Lowe, Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/af.htm (Asset Forfeiture)

WOMAN WANTS BACK TRUCK THAT DARIEN POLICE SEIZED

Vehicle Was Taken After Drug Bust In 04

STAMFORD --  Darlene Devito wants her truck back. The Darien Police 
Department has used it for undercover work since officers seized it 
after a drug arrest involving DeVito and her boyfriend in October 2004.

Darien police don't want to give the it back -- even if DeVito has a 
court order saying it's hers.

The case of the 1998 Toyota 4Runner has wound through the courts for 
about 15 months. People on both sides have missed crucial hearings. 
They have argued about a police department's right to seize cars, 
Tiffany earrings and other items officers found after a drug bust 
involving less than 1.5 grams of cocaine, records show.

"I want the truck," DeVito, 39, said last week. "Period."

In December, DeVito and assitant state's attorney Anne Holley, signed 
an agreement turning the truck over to DeVito once she sent a check 
for $800 to Connecticut's drug asset forfeiture account. Judge John 
Kavanewsky Jr. signed the agreement at state Superior Court in 
Stamford on Dec. 22, records show.

DeVito showed up at Darien police headquarters last month with a copy 
of the court order, she said, but police refused to give her the 
truck. Last month, the department asked the judge to reopen the case.

The department says the truck is their property because they spent 
more than $1,000 on repairs and hundreds more to install a police 
radio. They registered it with the state Department of Motor Vehicles 
in the town's name, records show.

John Wayne Fox, an attorney representing the department, would have 
brought that up at the December hearing, where DeVito won custody of 
the truck. But he wasn't there. No one in the department knew about 
the hearing, Fox said.

"To have her come back and say, 'I want the car now,' " Fox said, 
"well, it just doesn't work that way."

Darien complained and Kavanewsky will decide whether to reopen the 
case this month.

DeVito's boyfriend, Ronald Disette, 37, was driving the truck when 
Darien police arrested the couple late on Oct. 7, 2004, records show.

A woman at a Dickerson Street home overheard her son going over 
details of a drug exchange on the phone earlier that day, records 
show. She called police, who sent a patrol car to watch the house, 
records show.

About 11:45 p.m., Disette pulled up in DeVito's 4Runner. DeVito was 
in the passenger seat. Someone in the truck slipped something into 
the street-side mailbox, records show.

Disette later said he placed drugs in the mailbox, but witnesses 
thought it was DeVito because the arm came out of the passenger-side 
window, records show. Disette sped away and led police on a brief 
chase before pulling over near Exit 13 of Interstate 95, records show.

Police found a rock weighing about 0.1 grams under the passenger seat 
where DeVito was sitting. They found 14 tiny shavings of crack 
elsewhere in the truck, several crack pipes and other paraphernalia 
in DeVito's purse, a cell phone and five memory cards holding cell 
phone numbers, records show.

They also seized jewelry, including a pair of silver Tiffany earrings 
DeVito said her mother gave her, records show.

"We suspect some of the jewelry may have been stolen," the police 
report states.

An officer found three crack rocks, weighing 1.1 grams total, in the 
mailbox on Dickerson Street, records show.

And then police took the truck.

State law gives police the right to take any vehicle used to conduct 
a drug deal, unless the registered owner had no idea the dealer was 
using it for illegal purposes, said Holley, the state's attorney, and 
Capt. Richard Conklin, head of the Stamford Police Department's 
detective bureau and a regional expert on asset forfeiture law.

Disette told police DeVito knew about the drug deal, records show.

The rule applies no matter how much the dealer sold or how often he 
used the vehicle to deal -- get caught once and it belongs to police, 
Holley and Conklin said.

The same goes for any cash "intended for use" in the purchase or 
distribution of drugs, and any property a suspect might have 
purchased with drug money, experts said.

The American Civil Liberties Union has long criticized harsh drug 
forfeiture laws, according to several policy statements. In a 1997 
brief, the group railed against "Draconian punishments and property 
deprivations" against drug offenders and others who "had committed 
only minor infractions."

DeVito's record shows three drug arrests from August to November 
2004, all involving Disette. Disette's record goes back longer and 
involves more serious charges of selling drugs and operating a drug 
factory in 2001, records show.

Police never found DeVito with more than 2.3 grams of cocaine, records show.

Darien filed a motion to seize the truck in December 2004, records 
show. Fox said the town could seize it because it was used in a drug deal.

"The law is clear on this," he said last week.

Judge Theodore Tyma scheduled a hearing for late January so DeVito 
could argue against the seizure, records show.

State law allows anyone to contest a department's right to take their 
property after a drug arrest, Holley and Conklin said. Defendants try 
to prove they paid for the goods with money earned from jobs, not 
drug deals, digging up receipts and employment records, Conklin said.

DeVito says she paid off the truck in 2002, well before she started 
using drugs in 2004. Court records do not show when she took 
ownership, but a Toyota employee told investigators DeVito owned it 
outright at the time of her arrest.

Tyma ordered the state to send a note to DeVito's home by Jan. 5, 
2005, to tell her about the hearing, records show.

The state sent the letter. But DeVito and Disette were evicted from 
their Huckleberry Hollow Road home at the start of January, she said.

The letter was returned to sender in mid-January, records show, and 
the state postponed the hearing until February. State officials then 
placed an ad in the Jan. 31, 2005, Advocate announcing that a hearing 
was scheduled for Feb. 24, 2005.

DeVito, who was living with family in Stamford, missed the ad.

She entered a drug rehabilitation facility in New Haven on Feb. 8, 
2005, she said, though she did not list a date in court records. She 
says she had no idea a judge gave her truck to the Darien Police 
Department last Feb. 24. No lawyer represented her at the hearing, 
records show.

DeVito was release from the rehabilitation facility in May and filed 
a motion to reopen the case in June, claiming the process was unfair 
since she didn't know about the hearing, records show.

Kavanewsky granted her motion in June and reopened the case.

In December, the judge decided the case in DeVito's favor after she 
and Holley negotiated the amount DeVito would pay the state in 
exchange for the truck, records show.

Holley first insisted on $1,000, DeVito said. DeVito talked her down 
to $800, and Kavanewsky signed off on the deal in December, records show.

A used 1998 4Runner is worth $5,000 to $7,000 depending on the 
mileage and other conditions, according to the Kelly Blue Book Web site.

Fox and DeVito said they don't know why the state settled on $800. 
DeVito suspects the state would ask for more money if a judge reopens the case.

Fox says he didn't know about the December hearing and finds himself 
in the same position as DeVito -- demanding the judge reopen the case.

DeVito balked at the idea of more court time. She got her Tiffany 
earrings back earlier this year and wants the truck, too.

"It's over," she said. "I have a court order saying the car is mine. 
I paid $800. It's been decided."

That will be up to a judge.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman