Murdock

Okay I know most people here enjoy reading and debating and considering casing involving marijuana and while surfing the net I found an interesting case out of Ohio. A man's life savings have been confiscated by police even though he has not been charged with a crime.


via Reason magazine blog:
Reason Magazine - Hit & Run > Another Asset Forfeiture Outrage

dedbr

And this is the reason that asset forfeiture is such a stupid law. It seems now that they don't even have to prove you were dealing, just the suspicion........


Some Where In Ded Land...............

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Murdock

What's worse is that now he needs an attorney, and he doesn't have the money to pay for one. He wasn't even charged with a crime. There are far greater legal minds on the site than mine, and I think the site will find the case both interesting and scary

Andrew87

Wow....normally I am very supportive of the police/feds, but they went waaaay too far with this one. However, I think it would've happened regardless of the presence of marijuana.


I believe federal law is for law enforcement to confiscate sums of $10,000 or up if it cannot be proven that it was obtained legally, but this should have at the very least been investigated more thoroughly. If it was determined(as in, proven beyond a reasonable doubt in court) that this guy had been stashing the money for organized crime/drug traffickers(which doesn't seem like the case), then by all means, send the money to Uncle Sam. But that doesn't seem like the situation, and the FBI is using what seems to be an all-too-common tactic in law enforcement: seize the most money/assets you can; because it will benefit the agency. However, at the same time, this guy should've realized that such a large amount of money would have looked very suspicious if it were to be discovered.


Unfortunately because this is a civil case, it will be up to this man to prove where the money came from. Otherwise, it's gone. It is scenarios like this one that cause the American public to lose trust in/fear our government.