Indiana prosecutors will return $42,000 in cash they seized from a California small business, several months after the owners filed a class action lawsuit alleging that law enforcement is exploiting a major FedEx shipping hub in Indianapolis to seize millions of dollars in cash from innocent owners.
The Institute for Justice (I.J.), a public interest law firm, announced last week that prosecutors in Marion County, Indiana, have agreed to return the money to its clients Henry and Minh Cheng, who run a California jewelry wholesaler business. Police seized the cash from a FedEx package en route to them from a client in Virginia. County prosecutors then filed a lawsuit to forfeit their money through a process called civil asset forfeiture, claiming the Chengs' money was connected to a violation of a criminal statute. However, the complaint never stated which statute.
