Snug tops can get you arrested...

[snugtop]

Woman stopped at Logan with $46,950 sues DEA

By Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff | June 23, 2005

 

A Quincy woman who tried to board a plane at Logan International Airport in February with $46,950 stuffed inside her bra says she was heading to Texas for plastic surgery on her buttocks and breast.

 

But, in a lawsuit filed yesterday, Ileana Valdez said a male Drug Enforcement Administration agent told her she had a ''nice body" and didn't need any surgery -- then seized the cash, claiming it was drug money.

 

Valdez, 26, a single mother who was born in the Dominican Republic and is a US citizen, is petitioning to get the cash back in the suit filed yesterday in US District Court in Boston against the DEA. Her suit says she has no criminal record.

 

''How can you make a determination that people don't need cosmetic surgery?" said Boston lawyer Tony V. Blaize, who filed the suit on behalf of Valdez. ''I can't tell Michael Jackson he doesn't need more plastic surgery, even though I don't think he does."

 

Anthony Pettigrew, a spokesman for the DEA in Boston, said he couldn't comment on the lawsuit. But he said that federal asset forfeiture laws allow agents to seize suspected drug profits.

 

Although passengers have to file a currency report if carrying $10,000 or more in cash out of the country, they don't have to file such reports while traveling within the United States, Pettigrew said.

 

In her suit, Valdez says she earned the money from selling a Dorchester multi-service business and two parcels of property in Jamaica Plain. She said she withdrew all of her money from the bank to prevent creditors from getting the cash.

 

Blaize said Valdez was stopped while she was passing through a metal detector.

 

''I don't know why she was carrying it in her bra," said Blaize, adding that she probably felt the cash was safer on her body.

 

© Copyright 2005 Globe Newspaper Company.

[thelawgoddess]

$47K for breasts and buttocks? what a lousy cover-up!

[Bill_Simpkins]

yeah, it sounds fishy. However, she should get her money back if they can't prove it's drug money.

I would press charges of theft against the officier.