Posted on 07/22/2021 5:19:54 AM PDT by Red Badger
Injunction lays out the path for getting class-action certification for safe deposit box renters, lawyers say.
The feds faced another setback in their quest to keep $85 million in assets seized in a raid without charging hundreds of safe deposit box renters with a crime.
U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner issued a preliminary injunction July 16 in a lawsuit by several customers of Los Angeles-based U.S. Private Vaults (USPV), who alleged the FBI denied them due process by providing civil forfeiture notices that lacked "any legal basis" for seizing the contents of each box.
The feds indicted USPV for conspiracy to sell drugs and launder money, but not its customers, even while portraying them as an undifferentiated mass of criminals.
But the judge issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) last month, finding that the seizure notices fell "woefully short" of providing the "specific statutory provision," such as forgery or smuggling, under which the assets were seized.
Ordered by Klausner to "show cause" on why he shouldn't halt seizures until ruling on the merits of the case, the feds responded June 29 by disputing that the initial notice of forfeiture proceedings, "standing alone, must set forth the factual details and legal basis that support forfeiture."
An agency is only required to provide these details before making a "final decision," such that "a person has a meaningful opportunity to respond to a threatened forfeiture," acting U.S. Attorney Tracy Wilkison wrote. Plaintiffs cannot "with the mere flick of a pen" change the legal standard in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over California federal courts.
Wilkison groused that the Institute for Justice (IJ), which is representing the four plaintiffs who secured the TRO, included two who had already filed claims with the FBI for return of their property. That starts a 90-day clock on an administrative process under which the government must either file a judicial forfeiture proceeding or return the property.
File ECF 55 Defs Memo in Response to the Court's Order to Show Cause Re PI (FILE STAMPED) 6.29.21.pdf This "oversight" by the public interest law firm "resulted in consideration of complex constitutional and asset forfeiture issues on an unnecessarily rapid basis," Wilkison said. IJ had sought the TRO on the basis of June 24-25 deadlines mentioned in some of the forfeiture notices and the government's self-declared leeway to deny claims not filed "correctly."
Judge Klausner dispensed with the feds' 28-page filing in a single sentence in the order approving the preliminary injunction, saying Wilkison "failed to show cause" regarding the two plaintiffs who hadn't filed claims with the FBI.
That means the FBI cannot permanently seize $57,000 in cash from Joseph Ruiz, who is unemployed due to a crippling accident and has been unable to pay for medical treatment following the raid on USPV, according to IJ. The ruling also applies to Travis May, who was storing gold and $63,000 in cash.
The judge declined to extend the preliminary injunction to all USPV customers because they didn't join IJ's legal challenge. He also rejected for a second time the plaintiffs' request to certify a class of all similarly situated USPV customers, but on narrow grounds: They need to hit a 40-member minimum to certify a class.
Klausner just wants to get "some basic information, like the precise number of people who had property seized, filed claim forms, etc., before certifying the class," IJ attorney Robert Frommer, who is representing the plaintiffs, wrote in an email.
"That may take some more work and some more time, but we know the steps we need to take to get relief for more people unjustly subject to civil forfeiture," IJ spokesperson Andrew Wimer added.
The government is backed into a corner regarding plaintiffs and married couple Jeni Verdon-Pearsons and Michael Storc, who submitted their claim to the FBI in early June, Wimer said. The feds must "put forward real evidence that connects their property to a crime. Hopefully, the government will see the writing on the wall and move sooner rather than later" in returning their assets.
A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles, Thom Mrozek, did not respond to a query.
Still unresolved is why the FBI rifled through the contents of several safe deposit boxes in the March raid at USPV, as documented by video evidence submitted in another case. The search warrant approved by the court prohibited snooping on the box contents except to "identify their owners in order to notify them" about claiming their property.
Asset forfeiture is a stain on justice. It provides great motivation for corrupt activity on the part of Law Enforcement.
IIRC, “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process.”
Still unresolved is why the FBI rifled through the contents of several safe deposit boxes in the March raid at USPV, as documented by video evidence submitted in another case. The search warrant approved by the court prohibited snooping on the box contents except to “identify their owners in order to notify them” about claiming their property.
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The FBI rifled thru the safe deposit boxes and based on what they found, they then tried to charge people for crimes. “Lets search your property and see if we find you’re doing something we find suspicious”.
Today’s FBI. Conspiring with criminals like Whitey Bulger, enabling gang hits by fingering rival gang members, gun running, extortion, fomenting illegal actions, sexual harassment, bribery, fabricating evidence, faming people they know are innocent.
The FBI no longer investigates crimes, it commits them.
It’s like they can’t help themselves
I learned long, long ago, that the LEO’s of the government are in reality just another gang.....................
AND:
“No warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.”...........................
They want to ‘help themselves’...............to your stuff....................
I don’t get truly angry at much the government does. It’s more of a “shaking my head” thing. But civil asset forfeiture makes me hopping mad. It was the first thing I became aware of that told me police and governments in the US are more like the old Soviet Union than most will admit.
I personally know a blue collar man who left almost a half million dollars in gold and silver in a safe when he died. It represented a lifetime of acquisition as a main form of savings. Yet these clowns would suggest he has to prove how and where he got it or it could legally be taken. BTW, his heirs cashed it all in.
Bottom line is that it is quite literally none of the government’s business. In the world of “innocent until proven guilty”, if they want it, they have to convict you of the crime they think you committed to illegally acquire it. It’s not illegal to legally acquire money.
Hey...... it’s LA Jake
(not America)
Another day another round of FBI criminals.
Notice the pattern. Year after year systemic corruption
Did they have warrants?
No? Sue the shit out of everybody.
The FBI has been corrupt since it’s inception. Who could forget J. Edgar Hoover, the cross-dressing sociopath who kept “files” on everybody who was anybody? Hoover also allowed the Sicilian mob to become the most powerful entity in the USA because he was afraid they would blackmail him over his homosexuality. The FBI is rotten to the core and always has been. They just don’t try to hide it as much as they used to.
This is blatantly unconstitutional..................
Smacks of daylight robbery under the ‘color of the law’!
The original warrant was given to the DoJ/FBI against the facility owner ONLY and their agents were legally enjoined from seizing the individual non-corporate assets like these ‘safety deposit boxes’! Yet it is crystal clear that these agents of the DoJ/FBI DID VIOLATE THAT SPECIFIC limitation! Why are these agents and their superiors not suspended? Smells like FBI=NKVD!
This would be like a FBI raid on a dry cleaner establishment and seizing all the clothing from the customers.................
“Did they have warrants?”
They did have a warrant. A warrant that specifically ordered them not to do what they did. From the article:
“The search warrant approved by the court prohibited snooping on the box contents except to “identify their owners in order to notify them” about claiming their property.”
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