Opinion ID: 698685
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Verified Complaint and Affidavit

Text: 3 On April 4, 1989, the United States government filed a verified complaint and supporting affidavit to initiate forfeiture proceedings against the defendant real and personal properties located in Illinois. The complaint alleged that Jonathan and Clara Penny, husband and wife, were involved in narcotics distribution activities for the past decade. It also alleged that drug trafficking was a family business in which Clara Penny managed the business aspects, setting the prices and investing the proceeds, and in which their son Michael was involved. In fact, according to the complaint, both father and son had been incarcerated on narcotics charges. The defendant properties, worth perhaps $3.5 million, 1 were alleged to be the fruits of the large-scale narcotics trafficking operation run by the Pennys. The complaint recited that Clara Penny was employed as a mail handler, and yet she drove a Mercedes Benz. Because the Pennys' modest legitimate reported income could not explain the acquisition of those assets or the Pennys' lavish lifestyle, the complaint alleged that there was probable cause to believe that the assets constituted proceeds of illicit drug transactions and records of those activities that were forfeitable to the government under 21 U.S.C. Secs. 881(a)(5) and (6). 2 4 Filed with the complaint was the affidavit of Chicago Police Officer Lawrence Evans, a member of the Drug Enforcement Administration/Chicago Police Department Joint Task Force on Narcotics. Following his investigation of the Pennys' narcotics operation, this forfeiture action and, later, the indictment of Jonathan Penny on federal drug trafficking charges were initiated. In his affidavit, Officer Evans reported, in detail, information concerning the Pennys' drug trafficking that he had learned from a reliable informant who had known the Pennys for years. 3 According to that informant, Jonathan Penny told him that, in the drug business, you put everything in your wife's name. Officer Evans' check of the titles to the Pennys' real estate and automobiles revealed that many of their assets were in the name of Clara Penny or West Side Building Corporation (West Side). From a second informant, an associate of Jonathan's for almost a decade, Officer Evans learned that Jonathan had been distributing multi-kilo quantities of cocaine since 1980. A third source described to Officer Evans the lavish lifestyle of the Pennys, the elegant furnishings of their home, and the expensive restoration of their other realty. In addition, independent information that corroborated the allegation of a history of drug trafficking included the police records of both Jonathan and Michael Penny. 5 Officer Evans reviewed the Pennys' bank and stock records, and learned that large deposits of cashiers checks were made into their account in 1985 and 1986, and that checks for $75,000 were written to contractors working on the Pennys' property. After reviewing the Pennys' tax returns, Officer Evans pointed out that Clara's paycheck as a mail handler was the couple's only legitimate income, and that their reported adjusted gross income was far less than their deposits in bank and stock accounts.