Man wants his $400K back from the FBI

[jayfish]

http://www.limaohio.com/story.php?IDnum=47047

LIMA — Two robbers who broke into Luther Ricks Sr.’s house this summer may have not gotten his life savings he had in a safe, but after the FBI confiscated it he may not get it back.

Ricks has tried to get an attorney to fight for the $402,767 but he has no money. Lima Police Department officers originally took the money from his house but the FBI stepped in and took it from the Police Department. Ricks has not been charged with a crime and was cleared in a fatal shooting of one of the robbers but still the FBI has refused to return the money, he said.

“They are saying I have to prove I made it,” he said.

The 63-year-old Ricks said he and his wife, Meredith, saved the money during their lifetime in which both worked while living a modest life.

I know that this has been going on for quite a while but why is it allowed to continue? What happened to innocent until proven guilty and why should this man have to spend his fucking time and money with this fascistic BS?

Jay

[rfranklin]

1. If you are innocent until proven guilty, they have to prove....

that Mr. Ricks did not get that money legally.

[HereSince1628]

3. If you believe that, I've got rights to a pipeline between L. Michigan and Phoenix, interested????

[JHB]

5. Google "asset forfeiture"

...and under existing law, no they don't.

[Bandit]

11. Innocent went out the window with the Bush* Cabal and their

"Pre-emptive attacks" Just the idea you may be guilty is enough to hold you for year after year with no council or even be charged with anything lket alone get a court date. Habeas Corpus is so out dated...

[JHB]

2. "Prove you made it"

Way to "get govenment off the backs of the people", Republicans!

(Yeah, I know Dems have been complicit, but these thieving seizure laws mainly came about from Republican-pushed "drug war" and "tough on crime" drives.)

[HereSince1628]

4. Maybe they asking on which Printing Press they made the money it?

:shrug:

Life is stranger than fiction, doncha gnu?

[enfield collector]

6. chalk up another "victory" in the war on (some) drugs

[AP]

7. Lesson: spend spend spend (even if it puts you in debt)!!!

[Bitwit1234]

8. Let me get this correct

If you work all you life, don't trust banks, save your money in your own safe, the FBI can come in, take your money and keep it.

We are definetly living in a police state and the republican administration is the cause.

[rasputin1952]

9. Precisely...the hell w/the Constitution...

anyone can lose assets under these bastards.

Many people don't even realize that if they lend a car to someone, and a "drug" thing arises, they can lose the vehicle, or if someone rents a house to someone who smokes pot and gets caught in that house, the house can go to the local PD for sale or other disposition. If you rent out in NE, but live in AZ, you can still lose everything, even though you could not have prevented a situation from occurring.

the "war on drugs" has made a mockery of the laws that once prevented the seizure of private property. This was all imposed under GOP tutledge...x(

[JHB]

10. It's called "asset forfeiture"...

...and it came in sold as a "take the drug kingpins' ill-gotten gains from them" measure.

Needless to say, in practice the people who are most affected aren't "kingpins" of anything, and in many cases are not even criminals but got tangled up with law enforcement guys with dollar signs in their eyes.

http://www.fear.org/
http://www.isil.org/resources/lit/looting-of-america.html
(yeah, they're Libertarian-rooted organizations, but on this issue they're the ones at the forefront of fighting the excesses these laws have engendered)

[Pavulon]

12. So he has no tax return declaring that income?

The IRS would have those on file if he lost them. I keep a copy of each years return and secure a copy with my cpa.

On the fence here.

[jayfish]

14. There You Go Again.

It's none of the governments god-damn business how he made the money. Being on that fence must be fantastic. you can be non-committal on everything for the rest of your life. ...Hakuna Matata!

[Greyhound]

13. I wonder how many Germans defended the Third Reich before they started

losing the war?

People are being "disappeared" by our government every day and many of us are on many lists of "undesirables". Citizens are being held without warrant and tortured in public, arrested, and their assets seized (denying them the right to defend themselves even when they do get a trial), for merely expressing their opinions. The list of offenses and abuses seems endless, yet there are still a disturbing number that defend this.

To our foreign members; when can we begin to claim political refugee status? Would you sponsor an American refugee?

I'm not kidding