Posted on 04/26/2016 4:30:58 AM PDT by HomerBohn
The criminal depths to which police will sink to bolster their budgets, apparently have no limit, as a recent case of police theft in Oklahoma illustrates. To keep society safe, sheriff’s deputies in Muskogee County, Oklahoma robbed a church and an orphanage of $53,000. Real American heroes.
Eh Wah, 40, a refugee from Burma, who became a US citizen more than a decade ago, was traveling with the cash to deliver it to the intended recipients when he was targetted by modern day, state-sanctioned pirates — for a broken tail light.
Eh Wah had been entrusted with the money by the members of his Christian band who had been on a 19-city tour raising funds for the Dr. T. Thanbyah Christian Institute, a religious liberal arts college in Burma serving the Karen community there. And, they had also collected funds for the Hsa Thoo Lei orphanage in Thailand, which serves internally displaced Karen people.
Clearly a vulnerable host for their parasitic process, Eh Wah’s English was incompatible with that of the deputies’ and he was accused of trafficking drugs. A K9 was called to the scene, and, naturally, alerted to the vehicle. As the Free Thought Project has reported in the past, drug dogs will alert to your vehicle nearly every single time they are brought out regardless of actually having drugs or not.
In spite of the fact that not one single bit of contraband was found, Eh Wah was brought to the police station and interrogated for hours. Police even called one of Eh Wah’s friends in the band who confirmed the story, but the cops, with dollar signs in their eyes, still believed that his story was “inconsistent.”
Eh Wah was then released without charges and sent on his way — police kept his cash, and Eh Wah kept his broken tail light.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Eh Wah’s attorney, Dan Alban, noted that while the deputies took all of the cash, they left Eh Wah a check written out to him for $300 from a family friend.
“If they really thought these were drug proceeds and they thought he was a drug trafficker, why would they give back a check that they thought was drug proceeds?” Alban asked. But, he said, “if the real purpose of the stop was to increase revenue, there’s no point in keeping the check because they can’t cash the check.”
In an apparent attempt to justify their lowlife theft from an orphanage, five weeks after he was stopped, Muskogee County authorities eventually charged Eh Wah with a crime. They issued a warrant for his arrest April 5, for the crime of “acquir[ing] proceeds from drug activity, a felony.” For probable cause, the authorities noted the positive alert from the drug dog, “inconsistent stories” and, according to the Post, said Eh Wah was “unable to confirm the money was his.”
And we call this process ‘justice’ in the Land of the Free.
For decades now, the federal government and their cohorts in law enforcement have been carrying out theft of the citizenry on a massive scale. We’re not talking about taxes, but an insidious power known as Civil Asset Forfeiture (CAF).
The 1980’s-era laws were ostensibly designed to drain resources from powerful criminal organizations, but CAF has become a tool for law enforcement agencies across the U.S. to steal money and property from countless innocent people.
It was CAF, which allowed the Muskogee County deputies to legally pilfer from an orphanage without any worry of recourse or accountability.
No criminal charge is required for this confiscation, resulting in easy inflows of cash for law enforcement departments and the proliferation of abuse. This is called “policing for profit.”
In the last 25 years, the amount of “profit” stolen through CAF has skyrocketed.
According to the US Department of Justice, the value of asset forfeiture recoveries by US authorities from 1989-2010 was $12,667,612,066, increasing on average 19.5% per year.
In 2008, law enforcement took over $1.5 billion from the American public. While this number seems incredibly large, just a few years later, in 2014, that number tripled to nearly $4.5 billion.
When we examine these figures and their almost exponential growth curve, it appears that police in America are getting really good at separating the citizen from their property — not just really good, criminally good.
To put this number into perspective, according to the FBI, victims of burglary offenses suffered an estimated $3.9 billion in property losses in 2014.
That means that law enforcement in America has stolen $600,000,000 more from Americans than actual criminal burglars.
When police surpass the criminal accomplishments of those they claim to protect you from, there is a serious problem.
When police can publicly steal from charitable organizations and orphanages in the name of the war on drugs, it is time society reassess who the criminals are.
The good news is that Americans are waking up to this Orwellian notion of police robbing the citizens, and they are taking a stand.
Even police officers are taking a stand against CAF. In an exclusive interview in September of last year, the Free Thought Project talked to officer Stephen Mills, chief of police at the Apache, Oklahoma police department. Mills became an outspoken advocate against CAF after he became a victim of it.
The idea of thieving cops has also united organizations on opposite ends of the political spectrum. In October, the ACLU and the Koch Brothers came together to stop the inherent police theft in America.
While the police keep grabbing your property, it is important to remain vigilant. Only through a lesser ignorance and the spreading of information will we overcome this blatant tyranny. Please share this article with your friends and family to wake them up to the criminal reality that is – civil asset forfeiture.
Try being the key word here. Do you happen to know the success rate of that?
Sadly, you hit the nail right on the head.
The seeds of tyranny were sown decades ago.
*Never* *Ever* travel with that much cash.
“I don’t really damn care. They stole his money for a broken tail light! If they do it to him, they can do it to anybody!”...........
“Broken tail light”?......Ever consider the cops might have broken that tail light?
Corrupt cops cashing in.
Ka-ching!
They stole his money for greed. The broken tail light was just a convenient excuse.
Not really of our concern. The simple fact is, without an arrest, arraignment, or trial, this person's money was confiscated.
No proof at all that this was in any way related to a crime.
More importantly, how do the police know it was not?
Just because it is the law, does not mean the law is just.
Civil forfeiture is theoretically designed to prevent criminals from profiting from “ill-gotten” gains. Because there is a different and lower standard of proof for civil cases vs. criminal cases, Defendants often forfeit such property without trial for a number of good reasons. Especially when they are guilty as heck, but may not want to risk trial on the criminal matter.
In any event, the procedure is rife with abuse in some jurisdictions.
Where it SHOULD be used and is fully justified, is in benefiting from the use of illegal aliens and/or human trafficking labor. If your paving company or roofing company makes money (and forces legitimate competitors out of the business) because it benefits from using low wage workers paid under the table, those “gains” are “ill-gotten” and your company should be seized. If you are Zoey Baird or Barbara Streisand and you keep your house neat and the garden tidy by hiring illegals, your house should be seized. It is not just drug dealers who are hurting our nation.
Things would change in a hurry. I am going to advise President Trump to do this immediately upon inauguration. This would work hand in hand with “the Wall.”
Ed
In case you didn't grow up in the USA, and from your comment I suspect you didn't, in this country the burden of proof for illegal activity is on the government. The accused doesn't have to prove innocence, the government has to prove guilt. Asset forfiture reverses that presumption of innocence putting the burden of proof on the accused.
Further it is logically impossible to prove a negative ie that you didn't do something, because by definition you can't prove a lack of something. Which is why you should NEVER talk to police
Likewise, there is a reason Barry and his buddies, including the apparently complicit GOPe continue to grant more and more power to the cops (local, state, county) because while the military members pledge to follow and defend the constitution, cops do not. This is not a knock on cops, just an observation I am far from alone in making.
Never.
2) Some, not all of this money was set for donations to charity.
3) The money is being returned in full.
4) Oklahoma's forfeiture laws are considered among the worst in the country. But lawmakers cannot be bothered to change them. Stop blaming the cops. Last time I checked, cops don't make the laws.
Yeah, you’re right. Drug dealers and gun runners should absolutely be allowed to keep their ill-gotten profits after they serve their night in jail.
Let's see:
a christian band travels the country doing fund raising events where they say they are going to use this money for a church and an orphanage.
No drugs were found.
No criminal charges were brought.
Band member was released.
The car was returned.
Witnesses vouched for him.
The community is up in arms over the stolen funds.
What more do you want?
We have our own Nazis here in the US, and people who support “laws” like you suggest are them.
Everything the Nazis did was legal - they passed the laws to make it so.
Likewise, all over our land, Police are corrupt and becoming nothing more than a protection racket run by cowards wearing bulletproof vests
OK: Grand Jury Indicts Sheriff For Wrongly Taking $10,000 from Traffic Stop
Nice try at changing the subject, but unlike the government worshipers (like you) on this thread I happen to believe in things like innocent until proven guilty and Blackstone's ratio. Asset forfeiture is simply armed robbery under the color of law.
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