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.
That is true about presumed innocence in a criminal prosecution, but these are civil forfeitures. And forfeiture has been a part of this country’s legal system since its beginning.
Straw man alert! The only reason for this so called civil forfeiture is presumed criminal activity. Some earlier witling made some comment about drug dealers etc. Didn't see any drug dealing here did you? This is nothing less than an end run around the constitutional protections by armed robbers in uniform.
We just have a difference of opinion on the basic law so there isn’t much point in arguing its merit. Innocent until proven guilty is great, but people are arrested before they are proven guilty. I don’t see much of a difference between locking someone up and confiscating large amounts of cash when faced with someone who’s obviously lied about its origins. The money is being returned to him in full since he is not being charged with a crime. I do not believe it should have taken this long, but that’s the DA’s fault.
Which cost 5 times more than you had seized. They know it and rely on you not wanting to fight it.
The government wants your money, but it can’t get it legally, so it calls theft “asset forfeiture” and goes ahead with the theft.
Not just success rate, but COST (time and MORE $$)!?
Sad to see some (so-called) ‘conservatives’ bring out the pom-poms for the illegal/unconstitutional WOD and the death of presumption of innocence.
“I mean, all you gotta do is kneel down and lick the boot...”. Da, comrades? /semi-S
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
>*Never* *Ever* travel with that much cash.
You must have hit POST before finishing your sentence
....in a Fascist police State.
One would never utter such a remark in a Free country; where one can roam/travel and defend themselves at will.
What did you see? I only read a one sided screed about how this poor altar boy saved all his paper route money that he intended to give to some church, blaa blaa blaa. You can’t tell if this is government over-reach or not from this puffery. What evidence did the cops see? What was said? Maybe the author should do the work of a reporter and try to support or contradict the claims made by the involved. But reading posts here, it accomplished what it intended to do, inflame the agenda oriented. Burn down the system!
Ed
Asset forfeiture is a system primed for abuse. If you can’t convict a criminal on the evidence of criminal behavior, then by definition he’s not a criminal. I’d rather see 10 suspicious individuals get away with their possibly unlawful profits than one innocent deprived of his property.
Cops now
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have the
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orphans’ money
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Burma “Shave”!
Good point!
You are correct commissar. And it appears that their are some inconsistencies in his comments.
If you get caught with more than $10,000.00 cash on you they can take it. That is the law. (Not agreeing with it but it is what it is)
I don’t think this is true. Can you cite a law?
If you take more than $10,000 in cash out of your bank, the government is notified, but that’s all. If this was illegal, the bank would probably be complicit in the crime.
And if having $10,000 in cash is illegal, what about a restaurant deposit. It’s not unusual for a big restaurant to deposit $20,000 to $30,000 in cash after a busy weekend.
If it’s illegal, how do they get it to the bank?
Could police stop an armored car and confiscate their cash because they have more than $10,000? There’s nothing official about an armored car service. They are just a private company.
And I would be willing to bet that the dog would alert on that cash since we’ve heard repeatedly that all cash is contaminated with drugs (cocaine).
I know for a fact that dealers who buy cars at auto auctions will come in with $50,090 to $100,000. These places operate only in cash. No checks, no money orders, no cashiers checks, no bank checks. Just cash.
Perhaps upon closer examination our dogs may sniff out something suspicious? Where did all that money in his bank account come from, if not subversive activity?
We should confiscate it before he buys a gun or something.
OK technically it is not illegal until they catch you with it and take it. Then you must prove your innocence.
“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.”
The legislature actually had a bill limiting and/or eliminating this sort of thing, but it got killed in committee by the LEO lobby, specifically the State cops... Blame on both sides of the law there.
The law does work in terms of taking bad money and putting it to good use. But yes, from what I’ve read, this particular law goes above and beyond.
This is why no power should ever be granted to the Federal (nor any other government) without first considering how your worst enemies would abuse it.
Which is to say, the powers of the Government should be severely constrained.
That's what the Constitution (and State Constitutions) were for, and virtually all involved in their inception were focused on the potential for the abuse of power by government.
That reason for the Revolution was still fresh in their minds. They knew it could happen here.
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