FBI agrees to compensate victims of rifled vault lockboxes

The FBI has agreed to compensate individuals whose personal – and valuable – property was lost when the bureau opened thousands of secured personal lockboxes at a vault company and took and kept the contents.

The resolution is being reported by the Institute for Justice, which noted an FBI agent, when learning of the bureau’s loss of dozens of valuable gold coins, worried, “Uh oh.”

The report explains that the government now is compensating property owners who had cash and coins vanish when the FBI raided the US Private Vaults in Los Angeles, opened the sealed safe deposit boxes and kept everything inside.

“Don Mellein was one of hundreds of safe deposit box holders at US Private Vaults who had his box opened, searched, and subjected to civil forfeiture during an FBI raid in March 2021. A federal appellate court in January held that the entire raid violated the Fourth Amendment,” the IJ said.

The separate case developed because the FBI failed – or refused – to return 63 gold coins worth more than $166,000.

The FBI’s claim that it was immune to a lawsuit over property that disappeared while in FBI custody was rejected by a federal judge, and after months more of fighting, “it finally gave up and agreed to compensate Don after it was ordered to produce records of instances where other box holders’ property was misplaced or went missing.”

“The FBI had no reason to go through my box and they were careless in losing my coins,” Mellein explained. “It should not have taken a lawsuit for the government to do the right thing.”

Already, an FBI agent at the raid on the safe deposit boxes said the day “didn’t go down exactly as we planned it.”

Agents at the search said they had planned to videotape all box searches and keep a log of people there, but simply didn’t.

“In Don’s case, although there was a total of 110 gold coins in his box, the agents who searched it did not list any coins on the property receipt or any other paperwork. As far as the FBI’s records reflected, the coins did not exist,” the IJ reported.

“Valuable property was supposed to be removed and stored in a secure valuables vault, while the boxes themselves were allowed to sit in a parking lot and eventually were taken to a less secure evidence room. When the FBI went to return Don’s box, they found 47 of his coins still inside the unlocked and unsecured box, a scenario that one of the FBI’s evidence technicians described as a kind of ‘malpractice.’ As the agent in charge later testified, ‘There should not have been coins in that box.’ She added, ‘This is a problem.'”

The FBI, after trying to conceal the existence of the 47, eventually admitted the bureau had them and returned them.

But Mellein’s other 63 coins were gone.

“The FBI is supposed to protect innocent people, but they misplaced Don’s property and then fought tooth and nail to keep him from being compensated,” said IJ lawyer Joseph Gay. “They stonewalled, claimed immunity, and tried to block discovery. This shows why it’s so vitally important for courts to hold government accountable.”

Multiple other box owners also have claimed the FBI “vanished” their property, and some of those cases also are in court.

Troublingly, however, is that although the bureau “conceded that it wrongly left hundreds of thousands of dollars in valuable property unsecured,” there was no internal investigation or accountability.

“The FBI’s misconduct at US Private Vaults is a shameful chapter in the Bureau’s history, one for which it needs to be called to account. To be clear, the FBI lied to a judge about its plans, violated the express terms of a warrant, and lost people’s retirement savings while trying to forfeit over $100 million in cash, gold, and jewels from hundreds of innocent folks. Congress should call on Director Wray and other senior officials to testify and explain how they will ensure that the FBI never tries something like this again,” said IJ lawyer Robert Frommer.