As the legality of civil asset forfeiture continues to be debated and authorities wrestle with the possible civil rights violations, studies continue to show that Blacks and Hispanics are disproportionately targeted by cops. Civil asset forfeiture occurs when cops take cash, cars and other valuable items from people who may or may not be suspects. Despite the fact that many of these people have not been found guilty of a crime, law enforcement authorities are still allowed to take anything deemed an asset and not have to return it, even if the person is never charged with or found guilty of a crime.

Cops are only required to “suspect” that the property is in some way tied to illicit activity. When civil asset forfeiture is coupled with racial profiling, Blacks and Hispanics are left to be victimized by a criminal justice system that steals their cash and valuable items without no legal recourse for getting it back.

More and more, people of color are finding that their interactions with cops are not because they are there to serve and protect them, but rather to seize and profit. Oklahoma Watch recently conducted an analysis of high-dollar forfeiture cases and found that officers are using racial profiling, whether consciously or subconsciously, when deciding whose vehicles they will search and whose money and assets they will seize. Officers deny using racial profiling, and Oklahoma officials claim they are not sure why the majority of their seizures involve Blacks and Hispanics.

The Oklahoma statistics reflect a national trend uncovered by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, who reports that minorities comprise nearly 90 percent of drug trafficking convictions in federal courts. Oklahoma Watch specifically reviewed forfeiture cases between January 1, 2010 and August 11, 2015 involving seizures of cash that amounted to $5,000 or more. Sixy-five percent of the 401 cases were minorities, with 31 percent of cases being Black people, 29 percent Hispanic and 31 percent white.

The group specifically chose forfeiture cases of $5,000 or more because those types of cases usually happen during highway drug interdictions. ACLU-Oklahoma legal director Brady Henderson spoke about the data, stating, “The (data) matches what we would expect from our knowledge of who is profiled in these kinds of stops, of who tends to be a victim of asset forfeiture. It (race) is a major factor.”

Making matters worse is that cops do not just seize cash; they can also seize people’s homes. Leon and Mary Adams are just one couple to have their home seized by police. Cops are driven to make such forfeitures because the money generated by seizures is used to bankroll their police departments, and in some cases event fund their salaries. Some cops are even allowed to drive vehicles they have seized while on the job.

Many of those who fall victim to the seizures do not fight back for fear of being jailed, and they are generally not provided an attorney, with many unable to afford one either. Based on this most recent study and many before it, civil asset forfeiture is just one more way the criminal justice system victimizes people of color with little recourse for them to fight back.

Officer Ymmacula Pierre

NEW YORK — Prosecutors say a police officer who allegedly used a deceased man’s credit cards to purchase a diamond ring was indicted this Tuesday.

Officer Ymmacula Pierre, 30, is charged with identity theft, attempted grand larceny, official misconduct, and possession of stolen property. Pierre, a three-year veteran with the NYPD, was released without bail, but required to hand over her passport during arraignment.

Police records show on July 14, 2014, Pierre entered the apartment of Ken Sanden, and discovered he had died. Pierre took some of the Sanden’s property, including credit cards, and placed it into police custody. Two days later, Pierre allegedly used that credit card number to purchase a diamond ring worth over $3,000 from a Zales jewelry store.

District Attorney Cyrus Vance gave the following statement:

“Because police officers take an oath to protect and serve, they are held to a higher standard of behavior in the course of their duties. In this case, the defendant is accused of disgraceful conduct by using the credit card information of a dead man to buy expensive jewelry. No grieving relative should have to worry about alleged theft and misconduct by a uniformed officer in the aftermath of a loved one’s passing.”

Pierre’s attorney, Israel Fried, submitted a plea of not guilty on behalf of his client.

“She’s a sweet and nice person. She’s maintaining her innocence,” Fried said.

Sanden’s family contacted Zales after they were notified of a possible fraudulent purchase. Pierre had apparently requested the ring be delivered to a friend’s residence. Records show Pierre used the same friend’s address as a reference as a personal reference on her employment application with the NYPD.

Pierre is scheduled to appear in court on August 11. She has been placed on administrative leave without pay for 30 days.

Lyndon McLellan is getting his money back.

McLellan, a North Carolina convenience store owner, woke up one day to find the IRS had seized his career savings — all $107,000 of it. The agency had flagged McLellan for a practice referred to as structuring or “smurfing” — making multiple bank deposits of less than $10,000 in cash in order to circumvent the legal requirement to fill out a disclosure statement.

McLellan had been making small deposits, incrementally growing his savings. But he wasn’t illegally trying to cram a pile of money, bit by bit, into a savings account, a disclosure-skirting practice the law was ostensibly created to address.

In his case, there never was a pile of money. McLellan had simply been making regular deposits of what he earned at his store — as he was earning it.

The IRS and the U.S. Department of Justice didn’t care about any of that — at least not at first. Despite having changed its civil asset forfeiture policy to end seizures like the one McLellan endured, the agency wouldn’t return the money. It had seized McLellan’s funds only months before the policy change went into effect, and there was no law saying the IRS had to give him any consideration. Notably, McLellan was never charged with any crime throughout his ordeal.

The IRS did offer McLellan a nice insult of a deal: they’d drop their civil forfeiture “case” and return half the money, in exchange for McLellan to drop the campaign to have the full amount — an amount he amassed over 13 years operating a rural convenience store — returned.

The Institute for Justice (IJ), a nonprofit that advocates for people whose civil liberties have been placed in jeopardy at the hands of government, took up McLellan’s case. IJ’s pro bono attorneys understood that public opinion on asset forfeiture had been recently raised by other, similar cases in different parts of the country, so it produced a video telling McLellan’s story. It was widely seen and shared on social media.

Fast forward two weeks: the IRS has backed down, pledging to return all $107,000 of the dollars McLellan earned and saved.

“Yesterday, just two weeks after the Institute for Justice took on the case and brought it to the attention of the nation, the IRS and Department of Justice moved to voluntarily dismiss the case and give Lyndon back 100% of his hard-earned money,” IJ reported May 14.

“… Now, in moving to drop the case almost half a year after the IRS announced its policy change, the government cited the change in policy as its reason for backing down.”

IJ notes that McLellan hasn’t been made completely whole.

He’s “still out tens of thousands of dollars, thanks to the government’s actions,” the report states. “Lyndon paid a $3,000 retainer to a private attorney before IJ took the case on pro bono, and he also paid approximately $19,000 for an accountant to audit his business and to provide other services to help convince the government he did nothing wrong.”

The government isn’t offering to reimburse McLellan those expenses, nor is it offering to pay him interest on the money it stole/borrowed.

McLellan told IJ he was just happy his ordeal was ending, and he expressed a hope that his case would serve as a preventive lesson.

“What’s wrong is wrong, and what the government did here is wrong,” he said. “I just hope that by standing up for what’s right, it means this won’t happen to other people.”

Published by Ben Bullard on personalliberty.com

We’ve all seen the pictures; one bust after the other. Drugs like meth and marijuana all piled up and seized by the Texas Department of Public Safety.

After a court order, all of these drugs get incinerated and disposed of forever, but there are other things found in these busts that don’t go to waste.

“We’re collecting stolen vehicles, cash, credit cards,” said Trooper Chris Ray with DPS.

Just last year, DPS seized more than $33,000,000 in drugs and money during 219 traffic stops in the panhandle. $1,500,000 of that was in pure cash. There were also numerous weapons and vehicles were confiscated. But when all of this property and money comes in, what happens to it?

DPS says it’s put to good use.

“We’ve purchased some ballistic vests so that our guys are safer on the road,” said Ray. “Then, we’ve purchased in car cameras and you see those in court.”

Vehicles, body armor, vehicle cameras and even artillery can be bought by Texas law enforcement off of these collections. It’s utilized by not just DPS, but local Amarillo agencies as well.

Some of the most recent purchases include a mobile command center bought by potter county just last year.

“It’s an office on wheels,” said Potter County Sheriff Brian Thomas. “I’ve been out on several instances since I’ve been here where we were trying to work off a steering wheel in a car and it just doesn’t work very well.”

The same type of purchase has come in for Amarillo Police.

“It’s a $700,000 vehicle that we would not have had access to had it not been those seized funds,” said Sgt. Brent Barbee with Amarillo Police. “It’s a very valuable vehicle. It allows command staff and representatives from other agencies to all sit at the same table.”

Also, a bearcat armored vehicle is on the way Randall county.

The big question that lingers though is ‘how can these agencies just take property and buy their own? It’s called asset forfeiture. And there are laws in place that govern the practice.

“It’s to deprive the criminal of the profit of the crime,” said Randall County District Attorney James Farren.

The case and your confiscated assets go to a courtroom for a civil case. If the state proves the property was used in a crime, it’s handed over. It’s then repurposed in certain cases or disposed of because of debt that may be attached. It can also go to auction and money can sometimes supplement officer or prosecutor salaries.

Randall county district attorney James Farren deals with forfeit asset cases all of the time and he says the laws are in place for good.

“If the burglar loses property as a result of participating in a burglary, it discourages burglaries,” said Farren. “Asset forfeiture laws have developed over the last few decades and that’s the idea.”

While farren calls the practice beneficial, the idea to the public can sometimes be that law enforcement “Polices for Profit” or taking advantage of the forfeited assets for personal gain.  But local agencies say that’s not the case.<

“When you take into account the number of hours and expenditure for equipment, said Barbee. “I’m not sure there’s a lot of profit in every case.”

“We’re very careful to make sure the people we go after are people we have plenty of evidence that they were involved in criminal activity,” Farren said. “And we have plenty of evidence that what we’re taking back from them is either profit gained in the criminal activity or things that belong to them that they use to facilitate participating in that criminal activity.”

Over the past year, DPS says it found its most seized assets off of I-40, one of the busiest roadways in the panhandle. Ray said while he hopes enforcement cuts down on crime, he also wants to make sure people know the reasoning behind it.

”We don’t just seize it. We actually do a pretty good background and a pretty good check on it to see if it will benefit the state of Texas,” said Ray.