A lawsuit alleging the FBI illegally seized items from safety deposit boxes at a Beverly Hills business in 2021 can proceed.
KNX News' Pete Demetriou reports that attorneys for the three plaintiffs say the Feds kept more than $100,000 in valuables stored at U.S. Private Vaults.
Rob Johnson, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice, said his clients were among those holding safety deposit boxes whose items were seized, but when they tried to get them back from the FBI, there were problems.
"One of our clients had $2000 in cash in her box along with a significant amount of silver, and the FBI returned the silver, but when it came to returning the property, said, oh, there, we can't find that $2000. We don't even know if it was in there," Johnson said.
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Another client had over $100,000 worth of gold coins, Johnson said, "And again, the FBI says, we don't know, they throw up their hands, and they say we don't know what happened, but we don't have it, and we're not going to get it back."
The FBI offered an immunity defense to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but the court maintained that the FBI's claim was invalid, and the plaintiffs can sue the government for illegally withholding their assets.
Discovery in the case is moving forward, and it's possible a trial date might be set before the end of the year, but there is no clear timeline for when the case may go to trial.
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