FEDS WANT CALIFORNIAN'S $204,960

Gary Abena had the cash, but he didn't get to carry it out of
Wyoming.

On July 13, Wyoming Highway Patrol Trooper Dan Dyer pulled over Abena
after clocking his rental car from Philadelphia doing 84 mph in a 75
mph zone along westbound Interstate 80 in Albany County, according to
a forfeiture lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in December.

Abena showed his California driver's license to Dyer and told him he
was going west to resolve financial problems at his theatrical company
in California. Abena wasn't flying, he told Dyer, because of the
elevated national security level, and his wife didn't want him flying
back.

Dyer initially intended to issue a speeding warning. But Abena's
nervous behavior prompted the trooper to ask, and then receive,
Abena's permission to search the car trunk, according to court documents.

Dyer didn't find any contraband but saw that a partially open brown
leather bag contained some clothes and a tan package.

Abena denied that he had any narcotics, guns or large amounts of
currency.

So Dyer radioed for a drug dog, and Abena grew even more fidgety when
Trooper David Chatfield arrived with "Todd" the dog.

The dog walked around the car, didn't sniff anything, and Abena said
he "beat the dog," according to the documents. When Chatfield asked
what he just said, Abena denied making that comment.

So Dyer and Chatfield searched the car and found two bags later
determined to contain a total of $204,960 in bundles of cash.

Abena told them the money came from legitimate sources, but he didn't
provide details and didn't know how much he had. He then tried to
convince them that the money was from art and turquoise sales.

Abena does not have legitimate art or turquoise businesses in
California, according to records checks by Kevin Curry, a special
agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency cited in the forfeiture
lawsuit.

Other records checks showed that California Bureau of Narcotics agents
in 1986 found a kilogram of cocaine in Abena's California residence,
$22,000 in a hidden compartment in his vehicle, and scuba tanks used
to smuggle cocaine from Colombia; that he was sentenced in Missouri to
12 years in federal prison in 1989 for possession with the intent to
distribute LSD; and that he had made one-way rentals of vehicles
during 2003 and 2004 from Philadelphia and the JFK airport to drive to
California.

Abena was not arrested, Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Sharpe said in
a telephone interview from his office in Cheyenne. But the quantity of
cash, Abena's explanations and his criminal record raised enough
concern that the authorities had probable cause to believe that the
money came from illegal drug activities, Sharpe said.

"The law says you can use your common sense," he said.

So Sharpe's office filed the forfeiture lawsuit against the
$204,960.

The federal government files civil forfeiture lawsuits as a way to
remove the profit from criminal activity, he said. "The purpose was to
hit them in the pocketbook and take a bite out of crime," he said.

Abena is back in California, but Sharpe did not have his address or
phone number.

Efforts to trace Abena's whereabouts were unsuccessful.

Just because the federal government filed the lawsuit doesn't mean the
court will automatically approve of the forfeiture attempt and Abena
will lose his cash, Sharpe said.

"He has a right to contest it, and a right to have the government
prove the allegations," he said.