Posted on 12/21/2007 12:14:30 AM PST by LibWhacker
LIMA Two robbers who broke into Luther Ricks Sr.s house this summer may have not gotten his life savings he had in a safe, but after the FBI confiscated it he may not get it back.
Ricks has tried to get an attorney to fight for the $402,767 but he has no money. Lima Police Department officers originally took the money from his house but the FBI stepped in and took it from the Police Department. Ricks has not been charged with a crime and was cleared in a fatal shooting of one of the robbers but still the FBI has refused to return the money, he said.
They are saying I have to prove I made it, he said.
The 63-year-old Ricks said he and his wife, Meredith, saved the money during their lifetime in which both worked while living a modest life.
A representative of the FBI could not be reached for comment.
During the fatal shooting incident inside the house June 30, Ricks and his son were being attacked by two men and his son was stabbed. Ricks broke free, grabbed a gun and shot to death 32-year-old Jyhno Rock inside his home at 939 Greenlawn Ave.
Police originally took the money after finding marijuana inside Ricks home, which Ricks said he had to help manage pain.
I smoke marijuana. I have arthritis. I have shingles, a hip replacement, he said.
Ricks, who is retired from Ohio Steel Foundry, said he always had a safe at home and never had a bank account.
American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio Legal Director Jeff Gamso said Ricks has a tough road ahead, not impossible, but tough to get back his money.
The law of forfeiture basically says you have to prove youre innocent. Its terrible, terrible law, he said.
The law is tilted in favor of the FBI in that Ricks need not be charged with a crime and the FBI stands a good chance at keeping the money, Gamso said.
The law will presume it is the result of ill-gotten gains, he said.
Still Ricks can pursue it and possibly convince a judge he had the money through a lifetime of savings. Asking the FBI usually doesnt work, he said.
The FBI, before they would give it up, would want dated receipts, he said.
If the FBI does keep the money, it would be put toward a law enforcement use, if the city of Lima does not fight for it because the city discovered it, Gamso said.
Lima Law Director Tony Geiger said he has not been asked to stake a legal claim for the money.
There’s not a small number of people who don’t “trust” banks and keep their money in the mattress, so to speak. Every now and then we hear about the house where they find stashed savings after the homeowner’s death. I even considered it myself after $100 increments were literally disappearing from a checking account I had some years ago. I am quite convinced someone was embezzling. I changed banks after I couldn’t get the bank to believe it wasn’t me “forgetting” about money I spent. Amazingly it didn’t occur at the new bank, and it wasn’t because my memory suddenly improved.
Proof of innocence is an impossible burden. “I reckon he’s done sumpthin’, bring him in. Make him prove he aint done nuthin’. We got a society to protect.” See how that works?
We have Bill Clinton to thank for this law.
Hmm..is that local police, or co-conspirators, who, upon realizing that they could not steal the money, handed it over on a silver platter for a 10% kick back from their fellow co-conspirator the FBI?
/sarcasm
Actually that brings up an excellent point. What if he had 400k in valuable items (say diamonds or gold)? Would / could the FBI confiscate his "property" and treat it the same way they have treated the currency? Or is currency the delineating point here?
They probably could have taken his life if he had protested loudly enough.
I really am disgusted by these damn forfeiture laws for drugs possesion.
Federal thieves. This is one law that needs to be removed from the books. It is a terrible law.
Let's say it was 400k in gold bars. He'd have a much easier time demonstrating purchase of that gold over time through receipts at least kept by the commodities or gold exchange the metals were purchased through. But let's take it as assumed that this is indeed what he says it is: simply a life's worth of scrimping and saving. That'd be bundles of 1's, 5's 10's and 20's in that safe. That's going to perk the eyes of any police officer, especially when drugs are later found.
There's still that lingering question - why did two guys from Tennessee come driving into Ohio to rob a house that just happened to have marijuana and 400k in cash in it? Bet the statement from the robber who escaped after stabbing the man's son has a lot of play in here. I'd imagine he's been singing like a bird in order to avoid murder charges.
I have a feeling junior has a lot more to do with the money than dear old dad. If dad never had a bank account, that backs up his story. Of course, he’d have to show how he converted his paychecks to cash.
The Bill of Rights was killed and placed on a funeral pyre in Waco.
When the government realized that us sheep would allow it, they just took the next step.
Seems to me that the LEO and prosecutors should have to prove the money was proceeds from some criminal enterprise or some other nefarious goings-on.
This is reprehensible. It is offensive on so many levels.
Give the guy back his money. Stop screwing around with him. Just because some bureaucrat thinks no one can accumulate a little pile of bucks honestly...
Our govt hates cash. They want the money in places they can see and access.
No, then they do not have to storm the home for it. They just peck away at it every year, and nibble at the interest and capital gains, know you have it, and never stop thinking about it sitting there, while they NEED it.
Because they found a joint in his house, the special drug Constitution applies. It doesn't have a Bill of Rights.
But in the old days, he would have to be tried, convicted and a fine assessed. Sorry, but what the FBI just did is stealing. So far as I'm concerned they deserve whatever an old man with nothing to lose is willing to do to them.
The government has no right to steal our money.
this is wrong at every level.
I am bothered by the unfairness and randomness of the ‘punishment’. Someone with 50 kilos of marijuana and ten dollars may have his ten dollars confiscated, but someone with half a million and one joint gets his 500K taken away.
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