Sheriff’s investigator teams up with the feds to seize $70,000 in cash

A speeding SUV stopped in southern Grady County in May is apparently going to result in a cash infusion for the Grady County Sheriff’s Office.
Trooper First Class Kelley Meed stopped the SUV on Hwy 93 South for driving above the speed limit on May 18, 2013. When he found a small amount of marijuana and a large amount of cash in the vehicle, Meed called for an investigator with the Grady County Sheriff’s Office, according to Steve Clark, chief investigator with the Sheriff’s Office.
Clark says the driver was charged with DUI, and the three other occupants in the car were also arrested.
The $70,000 found in the SUV was seized and detained by Clark when the officers became suspicious of the occupants’ stories of how they came to have so much cash. The three Miami and one Miramar, Fla., males all claimed to be students at Florida A&M University who were returning from a trip to Atlanta. They said they had been there as “under the table” promoters of a rap artist and had rented a house in Cumming to throw a party.
Clark says he was suspicious that criminal activity was connected to the cash, so he partnered with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in detaining it. He says the men in the SUV had a certain amount of time to lay claim to the cash, but after that time had passed, the money was freed to be split between the DEA and Sheriff’s Office with the Sheriff’s Office getting approximately $51,000 of the $70,000. Clark said that time has been reached, but he is not certain of when the money will be received.
Once it is in hand, the money must be spent on training, equipment or other law enforcement use at the sheriff’s office with the exception of payroll.
Clark briefed Grady County commissioners on the seizure Tuesday and made them aware of his desire to use some of the funds to purchase equipment that would benefit the Thomasville GSP Post and Trooper Meed.