- A man in Cincinnati bought a stolen Porsche at a city auction and had to pay nearly $16,000 to settle a lawsuit over the purchase.
Buying a car at a city auction is supposed to be one of the safer ways to land a deal. The vehicle has been seized, processed, and put up for public sale by a government that is supposed to have its paperwork in order. So when a man in the Cincinnati area bid $35,000 on a 2014 Porsche Panamera, he probably figured the hard part was just writing the check. He had no idea he was buying a stolen car from the people whose entire job is to catch stolen cars.
The City of Cincinnati has now agreed to pay nearly $16,000 to Srinivasa Gowda to settle a lawsuit over exactly that. Gowda bought the Panamera at a public auction in December 2021. The car had been seized by Cincinnati police in connection with a drug case, which is the kind of detail that normally makes a buyer feel more confident, not less. The settlement closes out a fight that dragged on for years and exposed an uncomfortable truth about who carries the risk when the government sells you something it never had the right to sell.
What Happened…