Opinion
No. 3D00-1758.
Opinion filed December 13, 2000.
An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Alan L. Postman, Judge, Lower Tribunal No. 99-029645.
Affirmed.
Michael J. Osman, for appellants.
Akerman, Senterfitt Eidson, Jonathan Goodman and Samantha J. Kavanaugh, for appellee.
Before Schwartz, C.J., and Shevin, and Ramirez, JJ.
This is an appeal from an order which struck, for lack of standing, the claims to seized currency made by the appellants, Joya Industries, Inc. and Alvaro Mantilla. The order was entered by the trial court after it conducted an evidentiary hearing. We affirm.
On December 3, 1999, members of the Hollywood Police Department South Broward Drug Task Force were conducting a money laundering surveillance in the area surrounding the Miami International Airport. They observed an individual carry a large shopping bag into the premises of an import/export business, Joya Industries. A short time later, the officers observed the individual as he exited with the bag folded under his arm. The officers pulled him over. After this individual consented to a search of his vehicle, the officers found a box containing $19,200 in bundled currency.
The officers then went to the Joya Industries premises and spoke with Yamile Medina, the vice president of Joya Industries, a company owned by her father. After initially denying knowledge of a currency delivery, Medina signed a form consenting to a search of the premises. The search, aided by drug-sniffing dogs, disclosed approximately $20,000 in bundled currency in a plastic bag under the liner of a garbage can near the owner's office and another $5,500 in currency in the drawer of the owner's desk. After the currency was found, Medina claimed that an unknown male had delivered $50,000 to Joya Industries and that they gave $25,000 of it to Faros International, Inc., a freight forwarding company with offices adjoining Joya Industries. Medina also signed a blank waiver form, waiving any claim to the money seized.
The officers then proceeded to the Faros office next door, where Aida Hernandez, the owner of the company, consented to a search of Faros' offices. The police dog alerted on two boxes containing bundled currency totaling over $74,000. Hernandez stated that a man she didn't know had delivered $50,000 of the money on the day before and told her to wait for further instructions about what to do with it, and that the remainder of the money had been given to her that day by Medina from Joya Industries. Hernandez also signed a waiver of rights form.
After the seizure of the currency and institution of forfeiture proceedings, Mantilla, a Colombian national, and Joya Industries filed claims to the money and requested an adversarial probable cause hearing. Joya Industries' claim indicated that it was the owner of $30,500 of the seized money and Mantilla's claim indicated that he owned $74,980 of the money. After a number of hearings and extensive discovery, the trial court found that Mantilla did not have standing because he did not possess the money at the time of seizure, he did not deliver the money, and, implicitly, that the rest of the story he presented to support his claim of ownership was implausible. The court also ruled that Medina's "waiver" of rights to the money seized from Joya Industries operated to waive the corporation's claim.
We hold that the applicable standard of review of the trial court's finding on the issue of standing after an evidentiary hearing is abuse of discretion, i.e., the trial court's ruling will be upheld unless no reasonable trial judge would have so ruled. See In re Forfeiture of 1981 Oldsmobile, VIN No. 1G3AZ57N2BE32296, 593 So.2d 1087, 1089 (Fla. 1st DCA 1992). Although there may be evidence to support a contrary conclusion, following full review of the record and the parties' arguments, we conclude that there was no abuse of discretion in the trial court's finding that Joya Industries waived its rights to the currency and its conclusion that Mantilla did not "demonstrate an interest in the seized property sufficient to satisfy the court of the party's standing as a claimant." Munoz v. City of Coral Gables, 695 So.2d 1283, 1286 (Fla. 3d DCA 1997).
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION AND, IF FILED, DISPOSED OF.