Law designed to strip criminals of assets targets innocent homeowners

[xchrom]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/05/law-designed-to-strip-criminals-of-assets-targets-innocent-homeowners/




When Rochelle Bing bought her modest row home on a tattered block in North Philadelphia 10 years ago, she saw it as an investment in the future for her extended family — especially for her 18 grandchildren.

Bing, 42, works full-time as a home health assistant for the elderly and disabled. In summer when school is out, her house is awash with grandkids whom Bing tends to while their parents work. And the home has been a haven in troubled times when her children needed help or a father went to jail. One of Bing’s grandchildren lives there now.

“That’s the only reason I bought my home — I needed stability for my children,” Bing said. “And if anything was to happen to me, they would have a home to live in.”

But four years ago, something happened that imperiled Bing’s plans. In October 2009, police raided the house and charged her son, Andrew, then 24, with selling 8 packets of crack cocaine to an undercover informant. (Upon entering the house, police reported finding unused packets, though not drugs, in a rear bedroom.) Rochelle Bing was not present and was not accused of a crime. Yet she soon received a frightening letter from the Philadelphia district attorney’s office. Because Andrew had sold the drugs from inside his mother’s house, a task force of law enforcement officials moved to seize Bing’s house. They filed a court claim, quickly approved, that gave Bing just 30 days to dissuade a judge from granting “a decree of forfeiture” that would give the DA’s office title to the property. Bing was devastated.

[GiaGiovanni]

1. They've been really targeting minority neighborhoods like NoPhilly

Good article by Chris Hedges on this. Trying to find it.

[Catherina]

2. Rec'd. Was going to post a similar story earlier but filed it instead. Civil forfeiture

...

The officers found the couple’s cash and a marbled-glass pipe that Boatright said was a gift for her sister-in-law, and escorted them across town to the police station. In a corner there, two tables were heaped with jewelry, DVD players, cell phones, and the like. According to the police report, Boatright and Henderson fit the profile of drug couriers: they were driving from Houston, “a known point for distribution of illegal narcotics,” to Linden, “a known place to receive illegal narcotics.” The report describes their children as possible decoys, meant to distract police as the couple breezed down the road, smoking marijuana. (None was found in the car, although Washington claimed to have smelled it.)

The county’s district attorney, a fifty-seven-year-old woman with feathered Charlie’s Angels hair named Lynda K. Russell, arrived an hour later. Russell, who moonlighted locally as a country singer, told Henderson and Boatright that they had two options. They could face felony charges for “money laundering” and “child endangerment,” in which case they would go to jail and their children would be handed over to foster care. Or they could sign over their cash to the city of Tenaha, and get back on the road. “No criminal charges shall be filed,” a waiver she drafted read, “and our children shall not be turned over to CPS,” or Child Protective Services.

...

Later, she learned that cash-for-freedom deals had become a point of pride for Tenaha, and that versions of the tactic were used across the country. “Be safe and keep up the good work,” the city marshal wrote to Washington, following a raft of complaints from out-of-town drivers who claimed that they had been stopped in Tenaha and stripped of cash, valuables, and, in at least one case, an infant child, without clear evidence of contraband.

....

In general, you needn’t be found guilty to have your assets claimed by law enforcement; in some states, suspicion on a par with “probable cause” is sufficient. Nor must you be charged with a crime, or even be accused of one. Unlike criminal forfeiture, which requires that a person be convicted of an offense before his or her property is confiscated, civil forfeiture amounts to a lawsuit filed directly against a possession, regardless of its owner’s guilt or innocence.

...

“The eye-opening event was pulling those files,” Guillory told me. One of the first cases that caught his attention was titled State of Texas vs. One Gold Crucifix. The police had confiscated a simple gold cross that a woman wore around her neck after pulling her over for a minor traffic violation. No contraband was reported, no criminal charges were filed, and no traffic ticket was issued. That’s how it went in dozens more cases involving cash, cars, and jewelry. A number of files contained slips of paper of a sort he’d never seen before. These were roadside property waivers, improvised by the district attorney, which threatened criminal charges unless drivers agreed to hand over valuables.

...

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/08/12/130812fa_fact_stillman

Just sickening.

[Faryn Balyncd]

9. Civil forfeiture laws which allow the filing of cases against property are clearly unconstitutional:

14th Amendment, Section 1:

...No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Text



5th Amendment:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Text

Any state or jurisdiction which passes and/or enforces a law which deprives an innocent person of his/her property without regard to his/her guilt or innocence, which uses scams such as lawsuits against a piece of property which do not even mention the lawful owner, make a mockery of due process, and make a maockery of the Constitution.

Holder should hold these criminal "law enforcers" accountable.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

3. undercover informant = he might have set up her son. Informants do that.

[Downwinder]

4. I have yet to see them confiscate

a phone company for deals arranged by phone.

[BlueinOhio]

10. Or hotels

My brother -in-law used to work as night manger at a major hotel chain. He always knew which were the ones dealing and there are phone records but the police never bother to arrest any of them. One time in fact the drug dealer left bag of cocaine in the room. My brother-in-law called the police about it. The police just told him to call the guy back to pick up the drugs. He called the dealer put the drugs in the safe until he came to pick it up, the police did not arrest him in fact the dealer was back down the next weekend dealing.

[melm00se]

5. when the best tool you have is a hammer

then everything looks like a nail.

There are smart people who work in agencies tasked with enforcing laws and they will think outside the box and stretch the law beyond the original intent.

[matthews]

8. Oh. That's what they're called. Smart. nt

[KT2000]

6. OK - let's seize

the homes of Jamie Dimond, that Countrywide guy, and that Blankfein creep too. Better yet - let's seize the homes of all the executives of the financial firms and AIG.
Guess they have to charge them first though.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

7. Is the neighborhood ripe for gentrification?

This could be a simple land-grab measure. Any pretense.

[zeemike]

11. This has been going on for a very long time.

Every sense they passed the RICO laws which made it passable because they could charge the property with the crime...I know that sounds crazy but that is how they do it.
And it is simple....if you have a wad of money on you they can take it and charge it with a crime, and because it is not a person it does not have the right to being Innocent until proven guilty, and you have to prove the money is Innocent of the crime.

And they have used this law to seize property sense the 80s that I know of...I once saw the cops seize a drug store and they ran it for 2 years before they sold it...and the cops got to keep the money...they used the money to build a recreational place on a local lake for the cops to use.
Crime pays in more than one way.

[avaistheone1]

12. My understanding the law enforcement agencies get to keep the money when folks like these assets are

seized.

What a racket for law enforcement, and what a tragedy for the poor families!

k&r

[Enthusiast]

13. Kicked and Recommended. Thanks, xchrom....nt

[xchrom]

16. .

[Fuddnik]

14. The Police State marches on.

[Warren DeMontague]

15. DRUG WAR DRUG WAR THREE CHEERS FOR TEH DRUG WAR!!!!!!