The Sheriff's Stash

phr

Bluelighter
Joined
May 25, 2004
Messages
36,678
Location
St. Charles, IL
What happens to all that seized money and stuff?

IN 2005 the Montgomery County district attorney’s office held a party at the county fair in east Texas. They had beer, liquor and a margarita machine. The district attorney, Mike McDougal, at first denied that this had been paid for by drug money. He acknowledged that his office had a margarita machine at the fair. In fact, he said, they won first prize for best margarita. But he insisted they came by it fair and square. In any case, he pointed out, the county’s drug fund was at his discretion. Under Texas forfeiture law, counties can keep most of the money and property they rustle up.

As the drug war continues, the practice of asset forfeiture has come under question. Last year, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, $12 billion was smuggled from the United States to Mexico. Federal officials seized about $1.6 billion of that. State and local agencies got many millions more. The idea is to discourage drug smugglers by taking away their profits. At the federal level, forfeited assets go into a dedicated fund. But at state level, various rules apply. In Indiana, for example, extra money goes to a general school fund. In Texas, most of it stays with the sheriffs or district attorneys whose offices found it.

This was meant to help out and encourage local law enforcement by giving officers some discretionary income. In most cases it does. But Mr McDougal’s margarita machine was not an isolated abuse. A district attorney in west Texas took his whole staff to Hawaii for a training seminar. Another spent thousands of dollars on commercials for his re-election campaign. John Whitmire, a Democratic state senator, wants to prosecute such abuses and held a hearing last month to examine the issue. He found an immediate obstacle to punishing the profligate district attorneys. “I ain’t figured out what the hell law they violate,” he said. Chapter 59 of the Texas criminal code, which covers forfeiture, is vague on the subject. It says only that assets must be used “for law-enforcement purposes”.

Mr Whitmire is mostly concerned with the waste of public money. But the asset-forfeiture programme has various problems. Some poorer counties have come to rely on drug money to pay for their basic operations. Even in counties that are not strapped for cash, there is an extra incentive for sheriffs to go after money, so they may have more interest in the southbound traffic than in people heading north.

Another concern is that the government has broad powers to seize assets. In criminal cases, forfeiture follows a conviction and so it requires a guilty person. In civil cases, the property itself is considered guilty, and the government has only to show by “a preponderance of the evidence” that the money or gun or car was somehow shady. That is a lower standard than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” used in criminal cases.

Sometimes the patrolman gets things wrong. In 2005, for example, Javier Gonzalez was stopped in South Texas with about $10,000 in cash in a gym bag. He was going to visit a sick aunt and planned to use the money to make funeral arrangements. He was pulled over, and the cash was seized. The police report said that he seemed nervous. Earlier this year a court in Jim Wells County reimbursed Mr Gonzalez and awarded him damages. But many people in his situation could not have afforded to take their case to court. Lawyers are expensive, especially for a person who has just had thousands of dollars stolen.

Asset forfeiture is not simply a Texas issue. A sheriff in Georgia spent $90,000 on a sports car. It is used to advertise an anti-drug programme. A grand jury is trying to figure out whether that is “appropriate”.

Because Texas has such a long border with Mexico, it is home to several smuggling corridors. Mr Whitmire maintains that it is a good idea to keep the asset-forfeiture programme, as long as the state can figure out a way to clear up the abuses that threaten to ruin everything. During last year’s legislative session he had a plan to devote 10% of seized funds to drug courts and rehab programmes. District attorneys raised a fuss then, but this year they should be more receptive to suggestions. And Mr McDougal, by the way, fessed up in the end about the margarita machine.

The sheriff’s stash
The Economist (print edition)
7.10.08


Link!
 
Damn independent drug smugglers, undercutting the CIA's main source of funding.
 
if the cash stays in the department, there's a clear financial incentive for pursuing certain crimes above others. Why go after rapists when you can go after traffickers? Nevermind the plethora of crap people do to 'make the sale' when there's personal financial incentives - planting evidence, lying about suspicions/reasonable causes, etc etc. And before you tell me it's not personal, keep in mind the cash stays at most of these actual agencies. That directly influences the types of training, weaponry, vehicles, etc that they can use on their 24/7 job, so yes, there's a strong personal incentive to make drug busts over other (far more serious) crimes.

How on earth is it acceptable for the arresting officers/their departments/police orgs as a whole to keep this money? Remove the fucking financial incentives already, and take that money (when appropriate - taking john's car because he used it to pick up a hooker is laughable) and put it somewhere they could care less about, and you solve a lot of this specific problematic facet of the drug war.
 
No shit , and you know its things like that they seem to love to overlook , not just the fact that they take and falsify whatever they want , but it gives them a reason to do it .. its rediculous .. like i could see if they donated the money and stuff to poorer neighborhoods and stuff and charities , something useful ya know ..

But 90 grand on a sports car ?! .. yeah thats not right .
 
phrozen said:
The district attorney, Mike McDougal, at first denied that this had been paid for by drug money. He acknowledged that his office had a margarita machine at the fair. In fact, he said, they won first prize for best margarita.

lol a margarita machine, im glad the drug money is going to useful purposes..
 
NEW RULE:

All forfeited assets go to drug rehab programs.


More beds, more funds, ibogaine research. Of course it will never happen because the "drug war" is, of course, a sham. 8)
 
Anyone else see the irony in the fact that they used the money seized from drug dealers to buy a margarita machine and distribute their own drug (I mean alcohol of course)?
 
^^^^ And probably drove home from their little party smashed.

Do as I say, not as I do...
 
tobala said:
NEW RULE:

All forfeited assets go to drug rehab programs.

That would assume that public officials have actually some brains. But hey they'd just rather rather have margarita parties and hold "training sessions" in Hawaii instead.
 
I was reading this wondering, if this is the case for Georgia, then I see that a sheriff spent almost a 100k on a fucking car. That is fucking pathetic, so many sheriffs in Georgia and I would assume elsewhere are so corrupt. This one sheriff in Georgia got caught with a hundred or so acres of pot growing and he killed himself whenever the Georgia Bureau of Investigation caught him. I've looked for the story online, but I can't find it anywhere. I know firsthand that it happened though. This just pisses me off. The cops won't even fucking mess with the big drug dealers in my area, but will fuck over anyone else who is caught with drugs. Then use that for there own financial gain. Fucking bullshit.
 
Not surprising at all. The Drug War is about $ plain and simple. They have absolutely no interest in helping our country/ society at all.
 
tobala said:
NEW RULE:

All forfeited assets go to drug rehab programs.


More beds, more funds, ibogaine research. Of course it will never happen because the "drug war" is, of course, a sham. 8)


I'll do you one better: All forfeited assets go to social services. Drug rehab, mental health counseling, housing and urban development, heating and electric assistance programs, diapers and bottles for poor families, child protective services, the list of POSITIVE things that could be accomplished goes on and on.
 
I saw a movie (the name escapes me) that was dedicated to the damage that the war on drugs is causing in America and this was one of the highlight topics. It included interviews with undercover/SWAT agents that explained how the asset forfeiture laws encourage law enforcement to attack lower level dealers - those that are easier to arrest and prosecute - because it keeps a steady supply of income coming in to the counties. In fact there are drug task units that are completely funded by the money garnered from asset forfeiture and their names do not appear on any government payroll.
 
JerryBlunted said:
I'll do you one better: All forfeited assets go to social services. Drug rehab, mental health counseling, housing and urban development, heating and electric assistance programs, diapers and bottles for poor families, child protective services, the list of POSITIVE things that could be accomplished goes on and on.
Or just back to the taxpayers - I'd rather see it BURNED than given back to the police who confiscated it in the first place. And I do NOT say that out of hatred or any shit like that, it's just common sense that if you put a financial incentive on one type of crime, it will be persecuted more than others, and creating an incentive to combat drugs, as opposed to far more serious crimes (y'know, the ones where there's actually a victim :\ ), is a horrible tactic if your true strategy is purely to serve and protect.


Oh, and another thing - contract out the middlemen/auctioneers who deal your confiscated property for you (or do they just do the auctions themselves?), I'm so goddamn sick of hearing about how someone bought <car/house/jet skis> at like half its fair market value, because they bought it at a police auction. I know it's easier (and faster) than really trying to get top dollar, and you're not taking a loss as it's found/free cash in the first place, but this should be a situation where you maximize revenues back to the state, not provide sweetheart deals to whomever is at the auction.
 
Nickatina said:
I saw a movie (the name escapes me) that was dedicated to the damage that the war on drugs is causing in America and this was one of the highlight topics. It included interviews with undercover/SWAT agents that explained how the asset forfeiture laws encourage law enforcement to attack lower level dealers - those that are easier to arrest and prosecute - because it keeps a steady supply of income coming in to the counties. In fact there are drug task units that are completely funded by the money garnered from asset forfeiture and their names do not appear on any government payroll.
definitely post that up if you remember the name!
 
Nickatina said:
...In fact there are drug task units that are completely funded by the money garnered from asset forfeiture and their names do not appear on any government payroll.
I must say that one of the most obscene artifacts of the "drug war" is commission-based "law enforcement." If anything could contribute to abuse and corruption in law enforcement, this would be it.
 
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