Wanted for narcotics in U.S., but Courts return their cash

Dean Lindo

Over six thousand US dollars are said to have been confiscated from US National Arthur Schuh and his wife Sheryl, following two police raids at their Ladyville in May, 2005.  Back then, it was reported that with the help of an informant, U.S. officials collaborated with the Belize Police Department for close to a year looking for Arthur and his brother, Thomas Schuh, who were wanted in Wisconsin on narcotics charges. All three were charged with illegal entry and were later deported. But there’s good news for Arthur and Cheryl, after Justice Oswell Legall ruled in their favor today, ordering the Income Tax Department to return their money. According to their attorney, Dean Lindo, the police searched the Schuh’s residence without a warrant, claiming that they were looking for drugs and ammunition. He says that despite letters to the Income Tax Commission explaining the errors in the police procedures, the matter ended up before the courts last November. Lindo spoke to News Five about the arguments presented and the many flaws in the case.

Dean Lindo, Attorney for Arthur and Cheryl Schuh

“The judge decided this very morning that no, no, no, you have to give back that money to these people and you must give it by the first of March because he said that even if they were looking for drugs, they have to have reasonable belief that the thing is there. For obvious reasons, under our laws, you don’t just walk into somebody’s house and just ransack the place and so on and so forth. He find there wasn’t reasonable cause. They are saying that this person had this amount of money and they had a right to claim whether or not the person had earned the money in Belize and didn’t declare it for income tax purposes, therefore, they had a right to seize it. We argued, and the judge agreed with us that that wasn’t so because the people actually didn’t bring the money with them. They came through Mexico but the money was sent to them from the states and they were able to produce documents to show that they sold shares and all that and all that and that’s how the money came. So they explained how they came upon the money and they certainly gave evidence that they did not work in Belize in any way, shape or form. The chief witness for the police and the defendants gave evidence saying no we are satisfied that these people did not appear to us to be working. We saw no sign and we had no evidence that they were working because they were obviously trailing these people for some time.  They searched the first day and they picked up so much money which there was some discrepancy with the amount they said they found and handed to Income Tax and what the income Tax received. So they had that problem to start with. But the money that they received on the second day that they found—and they admitted this in court—the police did not count it, they put it in a bag and put her and the money to income tax and that is where they counted. We have a problem with that too, because if you’re going to use this bag of money as exhibit, then you have to take that and give it to the exhibits keeper where he will lock it up and so and so forth. The inspector said he put it in his drawer; well, that is not security and the rules are set out clearly on that.”

Judge Legall eventually ruled that fifty-nine thousand, two hundred US dollars is to be returned to the Schuhs plus six percent interest from November 2011.