"Journalists and investigators have documented numerous other instances in which police
departments have engaged in illegal shakedowns, searches, and threats in search of forfeitable
property and cash. In Florida, reporters reviewed nearly one thousand videotapes of highway
traffic stops and found that police had used traffic violations as an excuse—or pretext—to
confiscate “tens of thousands of dollars from motorists against whom there [was] no evidence of
wrongdoing,” frequently taking the money without filing any criminal charges.53 Similarly, in
Louisiana, journalists reported that Louis ana police engaged in massive pretextual stops in an
effort to seize cash, with the money diverted to police department ski trips and other
unauthoized uses.54 And in Southern California, a Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department employee
reported that deputies routinely planted drugs and falsified police reports to establish probable
cause for cash seizures.55"