Presented with the case by The Greenville News, Greenville Police Chief Ken Miller pulled the reports from that incident - the search warrant for the package, the investigative report, photographs of the evidence. More: Spurred by TAKEN series, South Carolina legislators seek to reform civil forfeiture An explanation of sorts, and an apology He never did get to send the money to his friend, and he said it strained their relationship. “What I did was not illegal,” Hamer said.

Hamer said he’s lost trust in police and still gets angry talking about what happened. “I believe it would be fair - it would not hurt my feelings at all - that they should be made whole,” Wilkins said. By then, the police had held onto his money for a month. Since the police department had already filed a complaint for forfeiture, Hamer had to fight the claim in civil court. “I’m sure that it was a huge embarrassment for them. Hamer said he considered just letting the matter go because he was worried about future police harassment, but his attorney convinced him to fight it, and he was glad he did. When a deputy delivered the summons and complaint at his attorney’s office, Hamer said, “Lady, you’ve lost your mind.

Just the one envelope that weighed a tenth of a pound, a receipt shows. It also showed an address in Greenville, also legible, where Hamer still resides. The News examined the FedEx slip, and the phone number was legible. More: 'This is all I've got': SC grandma pays a price to save home from seizure The receipt also listed his phone number, a number Hamer said he used twice to call Greenville police officers before they submitted court records saying the phone number was disconnected or illegible. He showed The Greenville News receipts for his purchases of six money orders, a receipt showing he paid to ship the package overnight through FedEx and paid for it with a credit card on March 4, 2016. Further, the sender paid for the delivery in cash and used money orders to avoid a paper trail, the filing said. It said the package was over-sealed and padded with foam insulation to try to deter drug-sniffing dogs. Once unwrapped, the package contained a coffee bag and a vacuumed-sealed package with money orders totaling $6,000, the filing said. Harrison's filing said the phone number on the package was “disconnected or illegitimate and the parcel had flaps that were glued and taped down.” Greenville police were working parcel interdiction at the FedEx facility when they began investigating a package mailed from Hamer to a man named Gabriel Black with a Washington state address.įiles belonging to Ryan Hamer related to the money he had seized during a parcel interdiction. HELP US: Keep investigative journalism going in this community Examining the evidenceĪ public record filed by Assistant Solicitor Sylvia Harrison laid out the police account. Two weeks after his money orders were seized, he received notice that Greenville police had asked the court to forfeit the money to them. Hamer, a pilot and part-owner of a flight school at the Greenville Downtown Airport, wrote a letter to the police, explaining what happened. He called his godfather, an attorney, instead. They invited him to come in for questioning. The police believed Hamer’s package was related to illegal drug trade, according to court records.įlustered, Hamer called the police. Officers had seized his package in a legal process known as civil asset forfeiture. The FedEx employee told him he needed to contact the Greenville Police Department. The next day, his friend told him he hadn’t received the delivery, which required a signature to accept. He paid a premium, $64.25, to ship the envelope overnight, his receipt shows. Once inside, Hamer dropped the money orders into a FedEx cardboard envelope, and an employee sealed it with tape. Postal Service couldn’t guarantee it would arrive Saturday, so he went to the FedEx distribution center on Mauldin Road. It was a Friday about noon in March 2016, and the U.S.

They told him he could buy six $1,000 money orders, so he did. Hamer didn’t want to send cash through the mail, so he went to the post office and asked the best way to mail money. He was down on his luck, out of a job, living with his mother in Washington state and in need of money quickly to pay child support, Hamer said. Then that same friend found himself in need. He'd just moved back to town and needed a hand up. Ryan Hamer once sat in a Greenville parking lot, broke and hungry, and a friend offered him money to buy food and pay his cell phone bill.

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