A 2012 Harley Davidson motorcycle.
Fifty-eight firearms and various ammunition.
Cash totaling $34,000.
Multiple scales and other belongings.
Convicted methamphetamine dealer Gerald Carlson wants it all back.
Carlson filed a petition recently in Pierce County Superior Court seeking the return of property seized by law enforcement during its investigation of him.
The 58-year-old was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison in April after a jury in U.S. District Court found him guilty of methamphetamine possession with intent to distribute and gun possession in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.
Federal Bureau of Prisons records show he’s at the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac.
Pierce County sheriff’s deputies arrested Carlson in May 2016, following an undercover investigation into the meth-dealing enterprise he ran out of his Summit-area home.
Investigators found more than a pound of methamphetamine, $34,000 in cash, 58 guns, hundreds of pounds of ammunition, three grenande-launcher munitions and ignition systems for claymore mines, the News Tribune reported.
Carlson made a previous request for the return of some of those things but was turned down by a hearing examiner last month.
That rejection prompted him on Dec. 14 to file his petition in Pierce County Superior Court, asking a judge to review the hearing examiner’s decision.
A hearing is scheduled for April.
According to court records:
Hearing examiner Capt. Gerald Lawrence, designated by Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor, oversaw a hearing Nov. 6 about Carlson’s request. Attorney Dana Ryan represented Carlson, who was not present.
Following the hearing, Lawrence signed a decision in which he found the Sheriff’s Department had proven:
▪ The money was for buying drugs, or proceeds from selling them.
▪ The guns were drug proceeds or were used to protect Carlson’s drugs and cash.
▪ The motorcycle was purchased with drug money.
▪ The scales were for weighing drugs.
As such, Lawrence ordered Carlson’s interest in the property forfeited — with the exception of two iPhone cases that investigators seized, one purple and one black-and-orange, which Lawrence ordered returned to Carlson by agreement of the parties.
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