Webb v. State of Ga.

Decendr’ee and Reginald Webb appeal following a bench trial in this civil forfeiture action. Decendr’ee Webb claimed that she was the owner of the 1975 Chevrolet truck and $13,050 seized from her husband Reginald Webb after he was arrested for drug violations. Because Ms. Webb did not show that she was an “innocent owner” under OCGA § 16-13-49 e 1 A and because the Webbs’s other enumerations of error are without merit, we affirm. Construed to support the judgment,1 the evidence at the forfeiture hearing was that Reginald Webb used the money and the truck in a drug buy that was set up with a confidential informant. There was testimony that narcotics agents met with a confidential informant who told them that Reginald Webb wanted to buy “half a kilo” of cocaine from him. The agents recorded several phone calls between Webb and the confidential informant setting up a time and place for the drug buy. Agents stopped Reginald Webb just before he arrived at the agreed-upon meeting place.

After being stopped, Reginald Webb immediately called his wife and she arrived at the scene a short time later. After drug dogs alerted to both vehicles driven by the Webbs, the officers searched the vehicles. They found a loaded 9 millimeter handgun beneath the driver’s seat and a safe containing $13,050 in the front passenger compartment of the pickup truck that Reginald Webb was driving.