Federal seizure program that benefits cops called ‘legal robbery’
Antoinette Lattimore was traveling from Cincinnati to Tucson two years ago to scout African art, carrying nearly $20,000 in cash for possible purchases.
By the time she got to Arizona nearly a week later, she didn’t have that cash.
That’s because a Dayton police officer, deputized as a federal drug enforcement agent, seized the money despite the fact that he had no warrant to search her and she was not arrested for nor charged with any crime.
“I had no idea something like this could happen in America,” said Lattimore, 44, who lives in North College Hill. “I’ve never been arrested before in my life. I even could prove that it was my money but that didn’t matter.”
But it does happen and it is all completely legal. It’s called civil forfeiture and, nationally, a total of $4.1 billion in such funds have been seized by local police and federal agents since 2006.
Over the past three years, Ohio law enforcement agencies aiding the federal drug task force have received about $32.4 million in such seizure money. State agencies from the Ohio Highway Patrol to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources received 20 percent of those funds.
The Mansfield Police Department received $2,505 in federal civil forfeitures in 2014, the only payment over the past five years. Chief Ken Coontz said most of their cases are local, so they don’t end up working with the DEA very often. The most recent case they worked with the DEA involved synthetic drugs, he said. And unlike some task forces, METRICH doesn’t have anyone who also operates as a DEA agent.
By comparison, the Knox County Sheriff’s Office, which is part of the Central Ohio Drug Enforcement Task Force, received $171,579 over the past three years. CODE has received $96,156 over the past three years.
Very little of that money gets returned to its rightful owners, again despite the fact that many of those who have their assets seized are not arrested for trafficking, dealing or even being in possession of illegal drugs.
Instead, most of the money goes back to the departments that seized it. And recourse for those targeted is extremely limited.
Why is it legal? Because Congress said so, although some are starting to question the practice.
“This is legal robbery … and is completely unconstitutional,” said U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Garrison. “I don’t care what good they can do with that money if it was acquired unconstitutionally.”
A pair of Ohio legislators, Rep. Rob McColley, R-Napoleon, and Rep. Tom Brinkman, R-Mount Lookout, introduced a bill in late October that aims to restrict how much Ohio’s law enforcement can benefit from federal civil seizures and requires prosecutors to convict a person of a crime before keeping seized property as profit.
It’s a move that, if passed, concerns the state’s task force units, said Lt. Jeff Orr, president of the Ohio Task Force Commanders Association.
“They’re going after people who are being responsible … Let’s address the abuses. Let’s not go after all of us,” said Orr, who uses seizure funds as grant matches for the Trumbull-Ashtabula Group Drug Task Force.
Changing all seizures to post-conviction could complicate cases such as one where a man Orr’s task force charged fled to Puerto Rico.
“It’s way too expensive to bring him back, but we have some assets … So what we’ve done is file a civil case because we can’t sit on them and we have no one to give it back to, and we wouldn’t want to because we had criminal charges on this guy,” Orr said. “He forfeited his right to that stuff when he left.”
Orr noted that former Attorney General Eric Holder already restricted how they work with the DEA on civil forfeitures. Up until last year, Orr said if they pulled over someone with a prior record who had several thousand in cash but no employment, they could call the DEA to come in to do a forfeiture. Now they can only be part of civil asset forfeitures with the DEA when they’re working a case together in the first place.
Even so, most times Orr said task forces are doing criminal seizures, which means they’ve charged someone with a crime.
For example, METRICH in the Richland County area often pursues cash and goods under criminal seizure laws. Over the past four years, METRICH reported criminal seizures and forfeitures valued at $2.2 million, according to biannual performance reports to the state. Meanwhile, METRICH has received no federal civil seizure assets for at least the last five years.
Departments involved in federal task forces and seizures can’t use the recovered money to pay salaries. But the money can be used to buy equipment, like guns and protective gear, and pay for training those agencies might not otherwise be able to afford.
And even though the Justice Department tracks down to the penny which department receives how much and even what they spend it on, federal and local agencies said they do not track how many seizures actually result in arrests.
Local and federal officials defend the practice, saying it is an effective deterrent against drug traffickers and that they are following the law.
In a statement, DEA spokesman Joseph Moses said that “asset forfeiture has the power to disrupt or dismantle criminal organizations” that could only continue with convictions of “specific individuals.”
How it works
Federal seizure laws are not unique to the United States. England, France and even China have been seizing property of suspected criminals or terrorists for centuries, and U.S. federal agents did so extensively during the 1930s to deter bootleggers during Prohibition. In 1984, Congress passed a law strengthening law enforcement’s ability to take property as a way to crack down on the growing drug trade.
The laws have been used even more liberally since the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Nationally, a total of nearly $4.1 billion has been distributed to law enforcement agencies since 2006, as compared to less than half that the previous decade. Statewide, the amount of civil assets seized more than doubled to over $20 million in 2014 as compared to 2004.
Officials said that they follow a careful investigative process before conducting a seizure.
“It isn’t like we just walk up to someone who looks funny or might smell like drugs and take their money,” said Cincinnati Police Capt. Paul Neudigate, who has two officers assigned to the local DEA task force. “At the airport, for example, we’ll see that he or she bought a ticket last minute with cash to a known source city.”
Orr contends that anyone whose money is being taken has some connection to crime — either a prior record or criminal associates — and no legitimate reason to have a large amount of cash.
When local officers actually seize money or property, the assets go into a federal asset forfeiture fund overseen by the Justice Department. The money can be kept by the government if the original owner doesn’t contest the seizure, if a federal magistrate rules the seizure was legitimate upon appeal or the government settles with the owner to keep part of the funds/assets.
While up to 80 percent of what is kept is sent back to members of the local task force by the Justice Department, often it’s much less. Although Ohio deposited more than $20 million into the civil seizure fund in 2014, less than half — $8.4 million — was paid to agencies across the state according to a previously agreed upon formula.
Kathy Brinkman, a Cincinnati lawyer who has been on both sides of the system, said it can work to deter crime. But she also knows that it illegally confiscates money and assets that rightfully belong to innocent people.
“The motivation to become as aggressive as possible on seizures and forfeitures by state and local law enforcement agencies has become ever greater because of financial pressures,” said Brinkman.
Brinkman, who spent nearly two decades as the local assistant U.S. attorney in charge of the seizure program as well as the deputy administrator over the national program, said the policy is flawed in that it is sometimes enforced by those without the training that federal agents get.
How to get it back
Those innocent of any drug crime face a bureaucratic nightmare to get their funds or assets back.
An indication of that nightmare? When Lattimore petitioned to get her money back, it started a process that entails the government suing her money to keep it “in custody.” In short, the government is trying to charge the money with wrongdoing, not Lattimore.
Hence, her case was officially “United States of America (plaintiff) v. $19,660 in United States Currency (defendant).”
Some estimates said that only 2 to 4 percent of those who have assets seized actually file to get their money or property back. That number was provided by police officials, who said that’s what they were told by the DEA. That agency, however, said it does not track that figure.
Massie and other critics argue that the number of people seeking their money back is low because only someone with resources to pay a lawyer can hope to get even some of their money back.
Despite her desire to fight for all of her money, Lattimore eventually settled for the return of $11,000 to avoid what she believed would have been an agonizingly long and expensive appeals process. Lattimore figures that, after her legal fees, she is keeping less than $8,000 of the original $19,660 seized.
“I still carry cash, but I’m sure a lot smarter about it,” Lattimore said.
Gannett Ohio reporter Jona Ison contributed to this report.
Filed under: General Problems
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