Personal Effects

Last Friday, April 3, the Buffalo Police Department returned some of Syaed Ali’s belongings.

Ali, of course, is the guy we first wrote about on January 9: He’s the young man from a Bangladeshi family who lives on Breckenridge Street, accused of emailing fake press releases making salacious allegations about the private life of Mayor Byron Brown last summer. On November 7, Buffalo Police, presenting a search warrant signed by City Court Judge Craig Hannah, a Brown appointee, ransacked Ali’s house, confiscated his and his family’s possessions, took Ali downtown, and questioned him for several hours. He was never arrested, never informed of his rights, not allowed to contact a lawyer or his family.

Five months have past, and Ali still has not been charged. But finally Buffalo Police have returned a few of his and his family’s possessions.

The items returned to him include several boxes full of papers and envelopes, four pens, a watch, some business cards, a bank book for a savings account, two expired credit cards, $2.01 in cash, four broken desk drawers, a stack of CD/DVDs, two rolls of 35-millimeter film (exposed), 20 VCR tapes, and a blue tote bag.

Another box of returned items contained, among other things, a TV remote control, a camera, four more rolls of film, a package of AA batteries, a chapstick, a toothbrush, a bnottle of Whiteout, two calculators (one Casio, one Texas Instruments), a Matchbox car, a bobblehead figure, and a package of dental floss.

Not included among the returned items were Ali’s laptop computer and Palm Pilot, which remain in police custody. According to the New York State Attonrey General’s office, Ali’s computer equipment was examined in its computer crime labs, and the results and equipment returned to Buffalo Police.

On November 7, Buffalo Police gave Ali’s family a receipt for 16 items they’d confiscated. Curiously, a great number of things returned to Ali last week are not on that list, including the camera, the calculators, and sundry personal items. Ali and his family have compiled a list of 42 items that they counted missing after the raid, including $750 in cash.

—geoff kelly