Most Of $500K Cash Seizure Returned After Strange Nuclear Plant Situation

Security Guard Found Duffel Bag During Inspection

POSTED: 4:18 pm EDT April 2, 2009
UPDATED: 4:50 pm EDT April 2, 2009

PITTSBURGH -- A Texas businessman who had more than $500,000 in cash seized after a strange security incident at a FirstEnergy nuclear power plant in Beaver County is getting all but $150,000 of it back.

WTAE Channel 4's news exchange partners at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported that the agreement between federal prosecutors and Glenn E. Marsh, who runs Houston-based trucking company Versatile Enterprise Transportation, was approved Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Gary Lancaster.

Beaver Valley Power Station

The money was carried in a locked duffel bag in one of the company's trucks. A security guard at Beaver Valley Power Station in Shippingport noticed the bag, which prosecutors said contained cash wrapped in a manner used by drug traffickers.

Marsh denies being involved in a drug ring. His lawyer, Marc Daffner, said Marsh decided letting the government keep $150,000 was easier than traveling to Pittsburgh to fight a legal battle in federal court.

Pennsylvania state police said two men drove up to the plant in a tractor-trailer on April 18, 2006, to pick up two large containers of tools for a contractor for whom they worked.
Video: Watch Paul Van Osdol's Original Report From April 2006

Security guards stopped the men for a routine inspection, but they drove away, police said. The guards became suspicious and called police, who pulled the truck over about a mile away.

A state trooper got a warrant to search the vehicle and found the duffel bag, which he said contained $504,230 in mostly small bills. The driver denied knowing anything about the money or who gave it to him, so the trooper seized it.

The men said they picked up the bag in Chicago and had no knowledge of its contents, according to police. Both were detained and later released without charges.

A police drug-sniffing dog picked up a scent in the sleeper cab of the truck where the bag was found, according to police.

"The currency at issue does not represent the proceeds of any criminal behavior, no criminal charges have arisen from the discovery of the currency, nor is the currency the subject of any ongoing investigation into any criminal activities, and it may not be forfeited or retained by the government," Daffner wrote in court papers.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Pittsburgh could not be reached for comment.

A spokesman for the FBI confirmed that the Joint Terrorism Task Force responded to the situation in conjunction with state police, but he said they don't think terrorism was involved. He would not give any other details.