Why are police in MA targeting a Motel with civil forfeiture?

For nearly three decades, Russell and Patricia Caswell have been the owners and operators of Motel Caswell in Tewksbury, Massachusetts.

However, if the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the Tewksbury police dep't. have their way, the Caswell’s property could be gone due to civil forfeiture.

The interest on the part of the DEA and Tewksbury police surrounds some of the guests who over the past 20 years have been arrested for crimes.

Out of the 125,000 rooms rented out during this time span, only 19 arrests have occurred, which is quite obviously a ludicrously low percentage of the total guests.

“I think it is quite obvious why the federal government has come after us and not other businesses,” said Russell “We own a million-dollar property with no mortgage, so anything they get here, they get to keep.”

The Caswells will have the libertarian public law firm Institute for Justice (IJ) in their corner when the trial gets underway on November 5 in Boston.

“The Caswells have always worked hard to prevent and stop crime on their property and they have no criminal record whatsoever,” said Darpana Sheth, an IJ attorney. “Indeed, the police admit that the Caswells have no involvement in crime.  To take property away from someone who has never committed any crime is fundamentally wrong and un-American.”

IJ will also be challenging the equitable sharing program, arguing it violates the 10th Amendment on the grounds that it creates incentives for local agencies to evade state law.

The Caswells are not the only individuals to be victims of civil forfeiture.

According to a 2011 IJ report by Dick M. Carpenter II, Ph.D., Larry Salzman and Lisa Knepper,  Inequitable Justice: How Federal “Equitable Sharing” Encourages Local Police and Prosecutors to Evade State Civil Forfeiture Law for Financial Gain, the abuse is running rapid.

As stated by the authors, equitable sharing is a federal law enforcement practice allowing for local police and prosecutors to circumvent the civil forfeiture laws of a state for financial gain.

During the years of 2000 and 2008, the U.S. Department of Justice saw their equitable sharing payments from state and local law enforcement increase from $200 million to $400 million.

The report also explains that as much as 80 percent of the proceeds are returned to the seizing agency.

“The Institute of Justice has documented time and again that civil forfeiture invites a lack of accountability, a lack of due process and a lack of constitutionally enshrined restraints on government authority.  Civil forfeiture needs to end.  If the government wants to take someone’s property, it should first be required to convict that person of a crime.  Short of that, you will end up with what we have today in Tewksbury and elsewhere,” said IJ President and General Counsel Chip Mello.
http://endthelie.com/2012/11/01/civil-forfeiture-law-could-result-in-hotel-owners-losing-their-business/#axzz2B4DTm1Nz

Bal Harbour police must return $4 million in forfeited assets: Department of Justice.

Florida - The U.S. Justice Department shut down Bal Harbour’s celebrated federal forfeiture program and ordered the police to return more than $4 million, slapping the agency with crushing sanctions for tapping into drug money to pay for first-class flights, luxury car rentals, and payments to informants across the country.
 
After years of seizing millions from criminals, Bal Harbour’s vice squad is now banned from the federal program that allowed the village police for years to seize cars, boats, and cash — and to keep a cut of the proceeds.
In a scathing letter to Police Chief Thomas Hunker, federal agents are demanding the prompt surrender of the millions reeled in last year by a team that operates from a police trailer just blocks from the opulent Bal Harbour Shops.
For years, the small coastal town known for speed traps became one of the most successful in Florida, with plainclothes cops jetting across the nation toting bags stuffed with cash from investigations that had no connection to Bal Harbour — and making few arrests.
The findings, released on Tuesday, were also sent to Mayor Jean Rosenfield, who could not be reached for a comment.
The action by the DOJ’s criminal division comes after a lengthy investigation that began last year with an audit and escalated into a deep probe that turned up a host of problems, including questionable expenses, hundreds of thousands paid to snitches, and missing records.
Neither Hunker, 61, who founded the unit after becoming chief in 2003, nor Sgt. Paul Deitado, supervisor of the squad, returned calls on Tuesday for comments.
One former prosecutor who ran the South Florida Money Laundering Strike Force said he was stunned by the development.
“Bal Harbour is going to have to answer for their transgressions,” said David Macey, a former Miami-Dade assistant state attorney who specialized in forfeitures.
“I’ve never read any correspondence to a law enforcement agency threatening the entire agency with penalties and criminal sanctions.”
Former Bal Harbour Chief Alfred Treppeda, now village manager, said the village council will meet for a special session on Thursday to talk about the troubled program, now under criminal investigation.Treppeda declined to discuss the sanctions — among the toughest against any agency in the country. 
“We haven’t really had a chance to talk to the Department of Justice yet,’’ he said.
The Miami Herald reported that the police department — a small-town force that mostly writes traffic tickets — has doled out hundreds of thousands to snitches, ran up $23,704 in one month for cross-country trips with first-class flights and Cadillac and Lincoln Town Car rentals, and misspent seized funds on police salaries and benefits.
And for years, the money rained on Bal Harbour: $100,000 for a 35-foot boat powered by three Mercury outboards, $108,000 for a mobile command truck equipped with satellite and flat-screen TVs, $25,463 for next generation Taser X-2s.

There was $7,000 for a police chiefs’ banquet, $45,839 for a Chevy Tahoe, $26,473 for Apple computers, $15,000 for a laser virtual firing range and $21,000 for an anti-drug beach bash.
The Herald found that two of the police officers were not even based in the village — but hundreds of miles away in Southern California and Florida’s west coast. Their roles: to manage the snitches.
In less than four years, the unit paid $624,558 to the informants for tipping off cops to lucrative busts in New York, New Jersey, California, and other states, the newspaper found.
On Tuesday, The Herald sued Bal Harbour over the village’s continued refusal to turn over all of the unit’s spending records.http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/10/30/3075097/feds-to-bal-harbour-hand-over.htmlhttp://www.miamiherald.com/2012/10/27/3070784/feds-probe-bal-harbour-police.html