pseudononamouse
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2009
- Messages
- 318
Mike Johnston's first hint that something unusual was happening at Camp Zoe was the presence of four police officers at Tiffany Hall, the campground's dining area.
"I wondered if the police might be looking for someone's missing kid," Mike recalled to Pro Libertate. "But as I walked through the camp I saw a couple more, and then a couple more -- and then I saw a bunch of guys in SWAT fatigues with assault rifles. One of them had a German Shepherd on a leash. All of them were doing their best to look intimidating."
The armed visitors who materialized at about 7:30 a.m. on November 1 were part of a multi-jurisdictional task force that invaded Camp Zoe, a popular outdoor music venue and campground in Missouri's Shannon County. The previous evening had brought the 2010 concert season to an end with the final night of the fall "Spookstock" festival.
"Every letter of the alphabet was represented" in the raid, Mike's wife Joni wryly observes. "There were people from the DEA, the IRS, the Highway Patrol, from Homeland Security, the local police and country Sheriff's Office. There was a group from the Rolla Police Department, which is two counties away from here."
...
Camp Zoe was placed under lock-down while the raiders rummaged through every corner of the campground, intimidating staff and visitors and seizing personal items (including cash). As this was going on another federal contingent was dispatched to clean out the personal and business accounts of Jimmy Tebeau, the musician and entrepreneur who owns and operates the campground.
The Feds "just siphoned away all of his money, and then filed a civil asset forfeiture lawsuit seeking to seize his property," protests attorney Dan Viets, who has volunteered to represent Tebeau. "This would mean that he wouldn't have the money needed to fight the seizure in court."
Camp Zoe was opened in 2004 by Tebeau, who plays bass in The Schwag, a hugely popular Grateful Dead tribute band. Since coming together in 1992, The Schwag has developed a large regional following, playing an average of roughly 140 concerts a year in addition to the "Schwagstock" festival performances. By some accounts, the 330-acre Camp Zoe is Shannon County's largest employer, and Tebeau's entrepreneurial accomplishments were recognized in a resolution enacted by the Missouri legislature in July 2005.
...
Under the Orwellian standards governing federal "civil asset forfeiture," Tebeau's property has already been found "guilty" of involvement in a crime. The agencies that seized it will be permitted to keep and divide it among themselves unless Tebeau can prove a negative -- namely, that he did not knowingly permit the sale and use of proscribed substances by others.
...
It is in the neighborhood of "impossible" to define a moral distinction between institutional corruption of the kind displayed by those Texas law enforcement agencies, and the variety frequently encountered on the other side of the border with Mexico.
...
http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2010/11/stealing-camp-zoe-federal-forfeiture.html
"I wondered if the police might be looking for someone's missing kid," Mike recalled to Pro Libertate. "But as I walked through the camp I saw a couple more, and then a couple more -- and then I saw a bunch of guys in SWAT fatigues with assault rifles. One of them had a German Shepherd on a leash. All of them were doing their best to look intimidating."
The armed visitors who materialized at about 7:30 a.m. on November 1 were part of a multi-jurisdictional task force that invaded Camp Zoe, a popular outdoor music venue and campground in Missouri's Shannon County. The previous evening had brought the 2010 concert season to an end with the final night of the fall "Spookstock" festival.
"Every letter of the alphabet was represented" in the raid, Mike's wife Joni wryly observes. "There were people from the DEA, the IRS, the Highway Patrol, from Homeland Security, the local police and country Sheriff's Office. There was a group from the Rolla Police Department, which is two counties away from here."
...
Camp Zoe was placed under lock-down while the raiders rummaged through every corner of the campground, intimidating staff and visitors and seizing personal items (including cash). As this was going on another federal contingent was dispatched to clean out the personal and business accounts of Jimmy Tebeau, the musician and entrepreneur who owns and operates the campground.
The Feds "just siphoned away all of his money, and then filed a civil asset forfeiture lawsuit seeking to seize his property," protests attorney Dan Viets, who has volunteered to represent Tebeau. "This would mean that he wouldn't have the money needed to fight the seizure in court."
Camp Zoe was opened in 2004 by Tebeau, who plays bass in The Schwag, a hugely popular Grateful Dead tribute band. Since coming together in 1992, The Schwag has developed a large regional following, playing an average of roughly 140 concerts a year in addition to the "Schwagstock" festival performances. By some accounts, the 330-acre Camp Zoe is Shannon County's largest employer, and Tebeau's entrepreneurial accomplishments were recognized in a resolution enacted by the Missouri legislature in July 2005.
...
Under the Orwellian standards governing federal "civil asset forfeiture," Tebeau's property has already been found "guilty" of involvement in a crime. The agencies that seized it will be permitted to keep and divide it among themselves unless Tebeau can prove a negative -- namely, that he did not knowingly permit the sale and use of proscribed substances by others.
...
It is in the neighborhood of "impossible" to define a moral distinction between institutional corruption of the kind displayed by those Texas law enforcement agencies, and the variety frequently encountered on the other side of the border with Mexico.
...
http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2010/11/stealing-camp-zoe-federal-forfeiture.html
