Company challenges seizure of marijuana cash proceeds in Kansas

A cash-management company is asking a federal court to give back nearly $166,000 in medical marijuana sales that Kansas law enforcement seized while the money was being transported from Missouri to Colorado.

Sheriff’s deputies in Dickinson County, Kansas, stopped a driver as she was traveling with the cash. The driver, a Denver-based employee of Empyreal Logistics, was transporting cash from MMJ dispensaries in Kansas City, Missouri, to a credit union in Colorado. Marijuana is legal in those two states but not in Kansas. The driver was not charged. However, federal prosecutors said the money is subject to forfeiture because it breaks a U.S. law forbidding the manufacture and distribution of federally illegal drugs. After the U.S. attorney’s office in Kansas filed the civil forfeiture action in federal court seeking to seize the money, a federal magistrate judge ruled in September that there was probable cause to seize the money because it was the product of illegal drug sales. However, Empyreal argues the money was generated through legal business dealings. A hearing has been scheduled for January.