Posted on 10/04/2013 12:32:27 PM PDT by Rusty0604
Can the government use civil forfeiture to take your money when you have done nothing wrong—and then pocket the proceeds? The IRS thinks so.
For over 30 years, Terry Dehko has successfully run a grocery store in Fraser, Mich., with his daughter Sandy. In January 2013, without warning, the federal government used civil forfeiture to seize all of the money from the Dehkos’ store bank account (more than $35,000) even though they’ve done absolutely nothing wrong. Their American Dream is now a nightmare.
Federal civil forfeiture law features an appalling lack of due process: It empowers the government to seize private property from Americans without ever charging, let alone convicting, them of a crime. Perversely, the government then pockets the proceeds while providing no prompt way to get a court to review the seizure.
On September 25, 2013, Terry and Sandy teamed up with the Institute for Justice to fight back in federal court.
(Excerpt) Read more at ij.org ...
Hard earned cash seized. Meanwhile Eliot Spitzer walks for multiple violations of not only the bundling law, but also procuring prostitutes over state lines. Both are federal offenses.
unfreakingbelievable.
What was their reason for seizing the money?
From the complaint filed it seems as though the grocery store made some deposits of over $10,000 in cash even though it is not against the law for legitimate businesses to do so. The money was seized without warning.
See my post #5. If you scroll down at the link there is a pdf of the full complaint.
ping
Those cash sales start to add up. IRS uses these tactics on drug dealers also. I have a friend that used to buy stuff for his retail business in cash to avoid taxes. He got caught at the airport with 15K in cash and they took it.
There are laws on this in most states.
All yer peasant money are belong to us, serf.
Because they can, and YOU can’t do anything about it?
I have made daily deposits for businesses that many days included more than $10,000 in cash. The bank just had me fill out the type of business and transactions on a form at first to fulfill their reporting requirements and that was it.
I have seen stories where individuals had large sums of cash seized and some never got it back even when they could prove where it came from. Other types of property can be seized also. It helps give the cops a bonus.
The British Vice-Admiralty Court shipping seizures from the American colonists before the Revolutionary War were more fair.
This is just armed robbery.
That’s not a very good solution. Plus the “revenuers” took the cash from his bank account. They didn’t show up at the door.
Soooo..... it’s illegal to have money? Repubs should jump on this and change it.
I read the pdf that discusses the plaintiff’s version. Couple things make me shake my head...they were warned a couple of times that their banking procedures were ‘suspect’ but they continued to do business the same way over and over. They used the ‘English is a second language’ as an argument for not understanding the law. And they said they were forced to make these deposits because their grocery store did a lot of cash business.
Regarding the last argument...I know the grocery business very well...and very few people use cash for large purchases anymore. It’s a debit, check or card transaction most of the time. The article doesn’t say how often the store deposited cash...so I don’t know if they’re talking about multiple deposits a day or week.
The whole thing is a little odd and I’m not sure we have the whole story. I don’t accept the government’s right to seize property or monies w/o due process. But I also don’t accept the whole “I don’t speak English” so I don’t have to follow your laws either.
The whole “asset forfeiture” was passed as part of the Rico Act in the WOD. This along with hundreds of other right-stealing laws are why I support the end of the WOD and decriminalizing recreational drugs. The damage to our rights far outweighs the damage done by your average pot smoker.
I didn’t see the “English a second language” part but #23 on page 5 says that they underwent an examination and no violations were found.
I think it depends on a store’s clientele whether credit, debit cards and checks are used. A lot of people don’t have them; they cash their checks at a check cashing store and pay their utilities there with cash, then pay cash for everything else.
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