Miami-Dade Police Dept Forced To Return 20K In Cash To Stripper

Cates told officers he legally owned the weapons and had a valid concealed-weapons permit. Body-camera footage from the incident showed an officer never got Cates’ permission to search his vehicle’s trunk but “instead commanded defendant to pop the trunk," prosecutors wrote.

"Search of the trunk was illegal," Johnathan Nobile, a prosecutor, wrote in a memo.

It was not immediately clear who owned the marijuana oil and codeine syrup since both Cates and Batista declined to say. The police department also never had the cough syrup to a lab to check if it was codeine.

Lawyers were still attempting to get the guns back to Cates but the cash was returned to the couple. The cash was taken from Batista after officers discovered it in her purse. She told them she was on her way to the bank to deposit the money that she received from her mostly cash-only profession.