Commonwealth v. Three Hundred Ten Thousand Twenty Dollars

OPINION BY

Judge LEAVITT.

These consolidated appeals involve the forfeiture of large sums of cash seized by the Pennsylvania State Police from vehicles that had been stopped for speeding. In each case, the trial court granted the Commonwealth’s forfeiture petition because it concluded that the cash had been used for trafficking in illegal drugs. This conclusion was based, inter alia, upon the results of an ion scan of the seized cash that showed trace amounts of cocaine far in excess of the levels expected to be found on currency in general circulation. From these test results and the other…