Ginnifer Hency says that police raid led investigators to seize a couple of guns, a small amount of cash and cell phones with a lot of medical marijuana.
And also something very personal.
“My medicine for my patients, why a ladder, why my vibrator, I don’t know either,” Hency said during a Michigan House Committee meeting.
And that last part is creating quite the buzz – a story now gone viral and raising questions about Michigan’s civil asset forfeiture laws
“They’ve had my stuff for 10 months now,” she said.
Ginnifer and her husband Dean Hency say it all happened when their home was raided last July. They both are licensed medical marijuana patients and caregivers. They claim to be targeted by St. Clair County’s drug task force.
It began when Ginnifer says she walked into a medical marijuana licensing facility as it was being raided.
“They asked me how much medicine I had in my backpack,” she said. “I said six ounces then they said to get a warrant for our house.”
The havoc they wreaked,” Dean said, “they just threw stuff around. Just dirt dumped all over the place.”
“We were in complete compliance with the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act and they destroyed my house,” Ginnifer said.
But St. Clair County Sheriff Tim Donnellon says they were not, and added that officers did not take her vibrator and would never have a reason to.
He says aside from that allegation, the task force’s actions were justified and par for the course.
Even so, a judge dismissed the criminal charge of possession with intent to distribute against Ginnifer Hency two weeks ago.
But here’s what she says happened when she went to the prosecutor’s office to get her property back.
“Lisa Wiznowski who is the assistant prosecuting attorney said ‘I can still beat you in civil court, I can still take your stuff.'”
Michael Komorn is the Hencys’ lawyer.
“This is bully tactics,” he said. “We have your property we couldn’t get any charges to stick, we’re just going to keep it. drag it out.
“Here’s a person who they took her property and they couldn’t even make the charges stick let alone get a conviction. So if there’s an example of why there needs to be reform it’s this.”
“They left my (equipment) I used to grow ‘drugs’ – they left that,” Hency said when she testified. “Now that is what the state forfeiture laws are made for.”
The St. Clair County Prosecutor’s Office has about a week to appeal a visiting judge’s decision to drop those charges against Ginnifer Hency.
That civil case regarding her property still pending.
The sheriff, Tim Donnellon, says the drug taskforce has been in place for 30 years and has a 99 percent conviction rate. He says there was nothing unusual about this case except for Hency’s testimony about her vibrator which he claims is false.
