He went on TV to accuse airport agents of stealing his $27K. Now, the feds have their say.
Is Cody James the victim of a runaway federal government or did he only play one on TV?
On July 16, officers with Homeland Security and Charlotte-Mecklenburg police seized $27,600 from James’ day pack shortly before the former North Carolina resident was to board a flight at Charlotte Douglas International Airport.
It’s not a crime to carry large sums of money through U.S. airports. But under the controversial provisions of the federal civil asset-forfeiture program, law enforcement officers can confiscate cash, cars and other property suspected of being tied to crime without ever filing criminal charges.
Millions of dollars are seized annually from travelers at Charlotte Douglas, one the country’s busiest airline hubs. James lost his money after a federal drug dog patrolling Concourse A took an interest in his day pack as James was waiting to board Delta flight 0794, records show.
Most seizure cases draw little attention. But two months after the airport incident, James appeared on a local TV station to claim he had been wronged.
In a Sept. 20 report aired by Fox 46 of Charlotte, James accused the government of unlawfully grabbing money he had saved from his $90,000-a-year job in Houston. James insisted he had withdrawn the cash from his savings at the start of a two-week vacation in the Carolinas.
On the day the money was seized, according to James’ account, he was flying to Oregon to see an old friend and planned to use the cash to gamble at a casino or possibly buy a truck.
In no way was the money tied to drugs, he said. Nor has James been charged with a drug crime. An Observer background check found only a misdemeanor traffic offense in Texas on James’ record.
“I had no narcotics on me, no narcotics at all, and this is what I get ... Robbery from the government,” James told the TV station.
Federal prosecutors did not comment for that story. But in a recent government filing in the court fight over the money, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte is anything but tight-lipped. In fact, prosecutors go to great lengths in their 38-page complaint to call James’ version of events a lie.
The crime in question, they say, is not government robbery. It’s drug trafficking.
False TV narrative
In the government’s account, James — nickname “Killa” — was not an innocent traveler carrying an unusually large — but legal — sum of cash. Instead, he’s described as an occasional “money mule” for a drug ring operated by a longtime friend, identified in court documents as Clint Toms of Forest City.
It was Toms, not James, who paid for James’ last-minute, one-way flight to the Pacific Northwest on July 16, prosecutors claim.
Reached by phone Monday, Toms declined comment.
James could not be reached for comment. His attorney, assets-forfeiture specialist William Pruden of Raleigh, told the Observer in an email that the focus should fall on “the Draconian civil forfeiture laws and the government’s overzealous forfeiture efforts” that often result “in devastating financial hardships for innocent individuals and their families.”
But in the airport case, prosecutors claim that after James lost Toms’ money, he and a family member peddled a false narrative to Fox 46 in which James played the victim.
According to the feds, James was not traveling to Oregon to visit a friend. He was couriering money to Toms’ Oregon-based supplier of marijuana. (Recreational use of the drug is legal in Oregon and 17 other states.)
During his interview with law enforcement officers at the airport, according to the filing, James could not provide a phone number or address for the friend he was supposedly visiting.
Nor has James been able to produce bank records to prove that the money came from his accounts, the complaint alleges, even though airport officers told him at the time that such proof would go a long way in getting his currency back.
Roadside seizure
In making their case to keep the cash, prosecutors also delved into James’ family life.
On the day he was to fly to Oregon, for example, James had been ordered by a judge in his divorce case to pick up his children in South Carolina and keep them for five days, the complaint alleges.
Instead, prosecutors say, he stood them up. When James called his wife to cancel the visit, according to the complaint, he told her he did not have the money to pay for a hotel room.
After the airport seizure, the government claims, it was James’ mother, Keisha Cole, who contacted Fox 46. In the station’s subsequent story, Cole attested to her son’s good character while expressing bewilderment at the government’s seizure of his money.
Prosecutors allege that Cole was far better informed than she let on. In an exchange of messages with Toms that prosecutors included in their seizure complaint, Cole discussed her own use of marijuana — which Toms appears to have supplied — while also volunteering to drive to Oregon to pick up a drug shipment if Toms needed her to do so. Cole could not be reached for comment.
The drug ties between Toms and James became clearer after a second money seizure in the upper Midwest, prosecutors say. On Sept. 2, Toms was stopped in Lincoln, Neb., and found to be carrying more than $39,000. According to the complaint, Toms confessed that he planned to use the money to buy marijuana in Oregon, the government claims.
In that seizure, the money was packaged with the same bindings and Post-It notes bearing the same handwriting that officials found in James’ day pack at Charlotte Douglas two months earlier, prosecutors say.
The Fox 46 report on civil asset forfeitures, which highlighted the July airport seizure, aired about three weeks later.
In an email to the Observer, Fox 46 news director Casey Clark said the station’s story was hampered by government refusal to comment on the James case.
“It is always our goal at FOX 46 to get to the truth,” Clark said in a statement. “As such, we reached out to every state and federal law enforcement agency related to this case, multiple times. No one agreed to speak with us. That’s unfortunate.
“Asset forfeiture is a murky area of the law and we hope this federal case will help shed light on it. We will continue our investigation and shining light in these dark areas.”
‘Free money’
After the Nebraska stop, a search of Toms’ phone found a July email exchange in which he had gloated with friends and associates about James’ interview with Fox and discussed a possible lawsuit over the money seized at Charlotte Douglas. (The third parties are named in the complaint. The Observer is identifying them only by their initials because they have not been charged with any crimes.)
In one exchange, Toms said the seized money belonged to him.
“Killa bout to be on the news,” Toms wrote to an associate, A.B., about James’ appearance on Fox.
A.B.: “What he get hit wit”
Toms: “Nothing they basically just robbed him for $27,600. Of my money smh ... they are f****d Fox News 46 done a 20-minute interview with him.”
A.B.: “Not good.”
Toms: “Hell yeah it is we bout to put a lawsuit on TSA ... he’s getting us lined up with a bomb ass lawyer that will sue the f**k out of them he’s talking 1.5 mill to 2.2 million.”
Two days after the seizure at Charlotte Douglas, according to the complaint, Toms had a separate exchange with “CT,” who raised doubts about the strategy of taking the government to court.
CT: “man that might open a big can of worms. I hope you’re doing it all through killa. And ur names not involved.”
Toms: “It’s all through Killa big dawg lmao ... I’m not that stupid ... And we would take a settlement plus the money returned ya feel me”
CT: “Damn not having anything to lose at this point.”
Toms: “See what I mean homie? ... I love free money lmao.”
This story was originally published October 20, 2021 at 6:40 AM.
