Deputy in Drug Money Case Sues Over Searches
A suspended Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy, who is scheduled to stand trial with eight other narcotics officers in a money-skimming scandal, has filed a lawsuit contending that local and federal investigators violated his civil rights in searching his two homes.
Deputy Terrell H. Amers and his wife, Genevieve, filed suit Thursday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles claiming that their Pomona home was illegally searched and the couple was harassed, coerced and threatened last September during a nine-hour ordeal. The Amers said another home in Arizona was searched a month later without a valid warrant. Named as defendants in the suit were the county of Los Angeles, Sheriff Sherman Block and a dozen local and federal agents investigating the money-skimming allegations.
Amers and the other indicted narcotics officers are scheduled to stand trial in October. The deputies, who had worked on an elite team investigating major drug cases, are accused of stealing more than $1.4 million from suspected drug dealers and money launderers.
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