Man can't recover $11,400 taken by police

BATTLE CREEK (AP) — The Michigan Court of Appeals says Calhoun County can keep $11,400, a gun and a camera seized from a car, although the owner wasn’t charged with a drug crime.

The court, in a recent 3-0 decision said  there’s a preponderance of evidence that the cash was tied to illegal activity. In a seizure case, that’s a lower standard than beyond a reasonable doubt.

Brye Rounds was arrested in 2012 after crashing his car into a tree when deputies tried to stop him. They found cash, a gun, a camera and a scale. Rounds later was accused of obtaining the money through illegal activity.

Rounds said the scale was used to prepare venison jerky, but the appeals court notes that he failed to offer evidence at a hearing last year.