Cops seize property, then ask for receipt

The News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina)
BYLINE: THOMASI MCDONALD; Staff Writer

Cary, NC

Police this summer seized hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of appliances, windows and other building supplies from a Selma man's property when it appeared that some of the goods had been stolen from Cary.

Six months later, Cary police still have not charged Clifton Ray Moore with any thefts, but they have shipped most of the seized items to Florida to be sold at an auction next week because Moore can't prove they're his.

"We told Mr. Moore, 'You show us the documentation showing that you are the rightful owner of the property, and you can have it back,'" said Cary Police Capt. Michael Williams. "He's had since Aug. 6 to produce those receipts."

Moore, 61, questions why he has to prove the materials seized from his property are his. He wonders why the burden isn't on the police to prove they're stolen.

"I just feel done wrong," Moore said. "They can come into your house and take what they need."

North Carolina law allows the government to seize property under civil law if it can convince a judge that the property was obtained through criminal activity. Williams said the police will seek a court order authorizing the auction before it takes place next week.

"All we've done at this point is move it from one location to another in preparation to sell it," Williams said. "If we go before a judge and he says no, then Mr. Moore can get his stuff back."

Williams said earnings from auctioning the building supplies, valued at about $250,000, would go to Wake County schools.

Cary police say the items were stolen even though no one has claimed the property. Williams said the items were in the immediate vicinity of others that were stolen. He said some of the property looked as if it had been installed and then removed.

He said police "did a lot of publicity" concerning the property and he doesn't know why no one came forward to claim it.

It was July when the Johnston County Sheriff's Office accused Moore, who uses a wheelchair, of masterminding a theft ring that for years ripped off construction sites of everything from double doors to heavy-gauge stainless-steel kitchen sinks.

Johnston sheriff's investigators carried an arrest warrant charging Moore with trafficking prescription drugs when they went to his home, which doubles as his business.

There they discovered a cache of home building supplies that appeared to have been stolen from sites around Johnston County, Cary, Apex and from out of state. The supplies filled two tractor-trailers. The sheriff's office contacted Cary police, who obtained a search warrant to recover some of the property.

The sheriff's office charged Moore with possession of stolen goods, and he is awaiting trial on that charge.

But Moore says the items seized by Cary police belong to him. However, his lawyer, Jim Lawrence of Smithfield, said late last week that he had not yet seen the receipts and invoices needed to retrieve his client's property.

"Conversations have been going on between myself and the town of Cary," Lawrence said. "I want to get to the bottom of why some of this stuff can't be released to him."

Police did return a tractor-trailer filled with doors and windows to a man who had stored them in Moore's buildings.

Police said the man produced receipts for the property.

But last week, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of other supplies were loaded onto two trucks headed to the offices of www.propertyroom.com, a Florida company that auctions off items seized by police departments across the country.

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