Police officers ordered to return $20,000 confiscated from stripper after bragging on TV


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Police officers ordered to return $20,000 confiscated from stripper after bragging on TV

By Alexis Bell 1:36 PM July 8, 2018

Ras Cates and Lizmixell Batista

Ras Cates and Lizmixell Batista

Police in Florida who went on television to brag about confiscating guns, drugs, and cash was ordered to return the money.

Miami-Dade Police Detective Alvaro Zabaleta told a reporter that officers had a successful traffic stop after confiscating weapons and drugs from a couple.

33-year-old Ras Cates and his wife, 20-year-old Lizmixell Batista, were in a car when they cut off a police cruiser.

The officer pulled them over and smelled marijuana in the car and allegedly searched the vehicle without consent. They also order Cates to pop open the trunk.

Officers seized 6 guns, including three assault-style rifles, $20,000 in cash, suspected marijuana oil, and a few bottles of codeine cough syrup with no valid prescription.

Cates had a concealed carry permit for some of the weapons but not for all of them.

Officers believed that the cash came from drug sales, but Batista claimed she was on the way to the bank to deposit the cash, which she earned at her job as a stripper at Cheetah Gentleman’s Club in Hallandale Beach.

Cates and Batista were charged with armed drug dealing among other felony charges.

The couple’s defense attorneys challenged the arrest after the officers bragged about the traffic stop.

Police asked a judge to allow the department to keep the cash because it had been in close proximity to large amounts of narcotics.

However, the judge ordered them to return it to the stripper.
Now, the attorneys are trying to get the guns back to their clients.

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