Lawyer claims ?09 raid on Fayette County church was violation of members? constitutional rights

By Brian Bowling

Published: Monday, July 22, 2013, 1:51?p.m.
Updated 4 minutes ago

A 2009 raid during the Church of Universal Love and Music's Funk Fest was intended to shut the church down rather than combat drugs, a lawyer for the church argued Monday in a federal lawsuit claiming the raid violated the constitutional rights of the church and several of its members.

Greg Koerner said that Fayette County had fought the church from its inception in 2001 and conducted the raid on Aug. 1, 2009 in retaliation after the county settled a separate federal lawsuit over its denial of a zoning permit for the church.

?It's about the power of government and how it was abused in this case,? he told an eight-person federal jury hearing the case. ?This case is not about drugs.?

Marie Jones, a lawyer for the county, said the case is all about drugs since undercover police found ?open and obvious? drug use at a concert three months earlier. As the officers walked through the crowd, people were offering them drugs and drug-laced foods, she said.

?There was drug use, drug paraphernalia and drugs all over the place,? Jones said.

The property owner William D. Pritts built the amphitheater in an attempt to open a commercial concert venture and only founded the church after the county zoning board denied his application to rezone the property from agriculture to commercial use, Jones said.

The county has never attempted to prevent him from holding prayers, drum circles and other religious activities, but has opposed his attempt to claim the concerts were religious events, she said.

Pritts and several people working or attending the concert claim that they were illegally searched during the concert on his Bullskin property.

Officers armed with a warrant arrested 23 people and seized two truckloads of suspected drugs and paraphernalia.

Koerner claimed that no hard drugs were found and that most of the stuff seized was clothing and crafts while the drugs added up to personal amounts of marijuana held by some concert-goers. A raid on a Dave Matthews concert would yield similar results, he said.

Jones said the raid netted 76 bags of marijuana, 20 bags of hallucinogenic mushrooms, nine hits of LSD, two bags of hashish, six tanks of nitrous oxide and ?hundreds and hundreds of smoking devices.?

U.S. District Judge Donetta Ambrose ruled in September 2012 that the county's ?all persons? search warrant for the 147-acre property was unconstitutional but said a jury would have decide whether the county conducted the raid to retaliate against the church.

The trial is scheduled to last all week.

Brian Bowling is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-325-4301 or bbowling@tribweb.com.

Most-Read Stories

1. Fleury not invited to Canada?s Olympic camp
2. Thou Shall Not Move dedicates Ten Commandments monument in Uniontown
3. Steelers tight ends on road to recovery heading into season
4. Brewers? Ryan Braun suspended for rest of season
5. Pirates notebook: Walker expected to return to lineup Tuesday
6. Kovacevic: Cut Penn State?s sanctions? Sure, for right reasons
7. Police, workers begin clearing 2 homeless camps under North Side overpass
8. Banksville, South Hills hit hard by flash floods during rush hour
9. Walmart charges too much sales tax on items purchased with coupons, Penn Hills man?s lawsuit claims
10. Memphis Belle soars and roars into Western Pa. sky
11. Palace: Kate gives birth to a boy

Subscribe today! Click here for our subscription offers.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/alltribstories/~3/Bh35qGbuB4U/church-county-raid

monday night football monday night football SEC Championship Game 2012 kansas city chiefs Javon Belcher express kindle fire