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When Pompton Lakes police seized Darren Richardson’s car on a rainy September afternoon, they told him it was headed for an impound lot. When they returned it three weeks later, he says, the 2004 BMW belonged in a junk yard. The instrument cluster and leather dashboard were gone. The caramel-colored seats were torn up. The gear shift was ripped out and stray wires hung limp everywhere. Geico, Richardson’s insurance company estimated the damage at $12,636.42 — more than he paid for the car — and declared the vehicle a "total loss." According to police reports, the damage to the black...

As part of its new campaign against abusive asset forfeiture policies, the Institute for Justice has filed a lawsuit in Texas, home to some of the worst forfeiture laws in the country. From the press release: "…law enforcement agencies in Texas and many other states get to keep the cash and other assets that they seize giving them a direct financial incentive to abuse this power and the rights of property owners. In Texas, forfeiture funds can even go to pay police salaries. This establishes a perverse incentive structure under which the more property police seize, the nicer their facilities,...

Stockton, Calif. (AP) -- The city council voted to ask the California Supreme Court to rehear a case in which the court ruled Stockton could no longer sell vehicles seized from drug dealers and solicitors of prostitutes. City officials said Tuesday the court's 4-3 ruling last week deprived the city of an effective crime-fighting tool. The ruling overturned the laws of more than two dozen cities from Oakland to Los Angeles, and established that only state law can determine punishment drug and prostitution offenses. A Stockton ordinance allows police to seize and sell the cars of people caught selling drugs...

BRANFORD – A federal appeals court has upheld a decision that a former Branford High School teacher has to forfeit interest in his local home to the government, but decided that his wife shouldn't have to because she wasn't actively involved in her husband's marijuana cultivation. Harold Von Hofe and his wife, Kathleen, were charged in 2001 after police raided their 32 Medley Lane home and found 65 marijuana plants, glass smoking pipes and other items associated with the cultivation of marijuana in the house's basement. The Von Hofes ultimately resolved their criminal cases in state Superior Court. Harold Von...

$1 million cash found concealed in pickup Wednesday, December 13, 2006 By DAVID FERRARA Staff Reporter State troopers found $1 million cash stuffed inside a hidden compartment in a pickup truck, but authorities refused to say much Tuesday about why they seized the money and the vehicle. The driver was alone in a 2006 Ford F-350, registered in Washington state and headed west on Interstate 10 around 3:15 p.m. Sunday, when he was pulled over, initially under suspicion of speeding, just east of the Eastern Shore Centre, said trooper spokeswoman Martha Earnhardt. Working on a "saturation patrol" designed to investigate...

The head of a group of companies and people that officials say laundered thousands of dollars in drug proceeds for the Arellano-Félix cartel owned a condominium here in a complex called Camelot. K.C. ALFRED / Union-Tribune Federal authorities yesterday served the owners of this house with papers ordering them not to sell because they have been suspected of links to drug-cartel money laundering. Yesterday, as children played in a nearby pool, federal agents taped a notice to the unit's front door, advising anyone who reads it that the owner, Tijuana businessman Lorenzo Arce Flores, is linked to drug traffickers. As...

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. What about the fifth time? On four separate occasions during Martin Chávez's two terms as Albuquerque mayor, the ACLU has raised serious, well-substantiated concerns about the constitutionality of the mayor's pet legislative projects. First, there was the 1999 teen curfew ordinance. Then there were two radical sex offender laws and an anti-panhandling ordinance, all of which were touted as "the toughest laws of their kind in the country." Four times we asked the mayor to reject these bills as unconstitutional, and four times he ignored us. Four times...

ASSEMBLY, No. 3998 STATE OF NEW JERSEY 211th LEGISLATURE INTRODUCED MAY 5, 2005 Sponsored by: Assemblyman LOUIS MANZO District 31 (Hudson) SYNOPSIS Provides for forfeiture of vehicle or building where weapon was unlawfully possessed. CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT As introduced. AN ACT concerning forfeiture and amending N.J.S.2C:39-5. BE IT ENACTED by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey: 1. N.J.S.2C:39-5 is amended to read as follows: 2C:39-5. Unlawful Possession of Weapons. a. Machine guns. Any person who knowingly has in his possession a machine gun or any instrument or device adaptable for use as a machine...

MIAMI (AP) — Federal agents seized an Arizona oil company allegedly funded by proceeds of a marijuana smuggling operation and took control of a number of its other assets, authorities announced Tuesday. U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents seized Phoenix-based Shaboom Oil Inc. on Friday. The company, owned by Panama-based Shaboom Investments, also forfeited 43 operating oil wells in Pennsylvania and mineral rights to 1,100 acres in the Allegheny National Forest, authorities said. Authorities also said they seized $6.5 million in assets from trusts and bank accounts in Monaco, part of more than $70 million forfeited in the investigation dating...

Deputy stops man for traffic violation, but ends up seizing his cash and jewelry John Pickens didn't want to show his face while telling Ted Oberg his story, but he has contacted the FBI. By Ted Oberg ABC13 Eyewitness News (01/17/05 - HOUSTON) — It seemed like a routine traffic stop, but then it took an unfortunate turn for the man who was pulled over. That driver was told, "I have good news and bad news. The good news is you don't get a ticket. The bad news I have to take your money and your jewelry." Deputy stops man...

Five months after a pair of altercations between off-duty New Hampshire Drug Task Force officers, a Portsmouth police officer and civilians, no charges have been filed and the county courthouse is void of any pertinent public record. The county attorney, state police, head of the drug task force and Portsmouth police chief all remain tight-lipped, saying little more than their respective investigations are ongoing. Meanwhile, rumors of a motive linger. State law defining the distribution of seized drug assets may validate one alleged motive for the March 17 and 18 public police disputes. Money. According to New Hampshire law, funds...

Police departments fighting over Mixon's forfeited SUV The Associated Press - Wednesday, May 12, 2004 MINNEAPOLIS Two suburban police departments are fighting over a sports utility vehicle forfeited by Vikings defensive end Kenny Mixon after a recent drunken driving conviction. Under state law, Mixon's seized 2001 GMC Yukon Denali may be sold because of repeat drunken driving offenses. South Lake Minnetonka, noting that one of its officers pulled Mixon over in November, says it should get half the proceeds from a potential sale. But because Mixon's arrest occurred in Deephaven, police there say the SUV is theirs. South Lake Minnetonka...

<p>CLEVELAND, Tenn. — When officers patrolling Interstate 75 in southeast Tennessee stopped a Lincoln Navigator for speeding and tailgating, they hit the jackpot.</p> <p>A search turned up vacuum-sealed plastic bags of cash, about $1.1million stuffed in compartments, behind door panels and in suitcases — money the driver described as the proceeds of a marijuana sale, the officers said.</p>

WENATCHEE — A pedestrian who found a backpack filled with nearly $500,000 near Ellisforde, Okanogan County, likely helped disrupt a drug deal, officials said. The pedestrian found the pack hidden along Highway 97 on Friday and called authorities, Okanogan County Sheriff Frank Rogers said. He would not name the pedestrian. Deputies took the cash, replaced it with police magazines, then returned the pack and waited, Rogers said. At about 7:30 p.m. Friday, David L. Taber Jr., 35, of Oroville, Okanogan County, picked up the backpack and drove away, Rogers said. Deputies arrested him. He appeared in Okanogan County Superior Court...

March 3, 2004, 9:19AM Traffic stop yields $1 million stashed in truck By S.K. BARDWELL Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle Law officers seized about $1 million in cash found in a hidden compartment in a tractor-trailer rig pulled over for a routine traffic stop this morning. The truck was stopped about 4 a.m. on the southbound lanes of U.S. 59 near Bissonnet by Harris County Sheriff's Department deputies. The deputies said they became suspicious when the driver's description of where he had been and where he was going kept changing. Drug-sniffing dogs were brought to the scene and found a hidden...

Money Laundering and Mission Creep Posted Dec. 26, 2003 By John Berlau It was widely reported as an outrage, a use of the USA PATRIOT Act by the puritanical Attorney General John Ashcroft and his Justice Department to go after a crime that had nothing to do with terrorism. FBI agents conceded using Title III, the section of the USA PATRIOT Act that covers money laundering, in Operation G-string - an investigation of corruption allegations against a strip-club owner in Las Vegas. The agents used Section 314 to seize the financial records of local elected officials the FBI thought might...

FARWELL – After more than a two-year ordeal, a Parmer County jury Thursday found Ronnie Puckett, 47, innocent of possession of marijuana, a charge that came after police found an estimated 250 pounds of the drug on his Lazbuddie farm in October 2001. His fight continues, however, to keep the state from seizing his land. Puckett was arrested on June 14, 2002, after an investigation into the cultivation of marijuana plants on about 10 acres of cornfield. Police also seized marijuana from a barn on the property. Puckett’s then-74-year-old father, William Vernon Puckett, was arrested during a raid on the...

ALICE, Texas (AP) — Authorities found boxes filled with millions of dollars when they searched an 18-wheeler because its paperwork "didn't add up" during a routine inspection. Eleven boxes filled with packaged money were found in the truck Wednesday among its regular load, boxes of heat-and-serve dinner rolls, authorities said. The total was estimated at $6 million. "We haven't gotten an official count yet," state Department of Public Safety Capt. David Doyle said. "They are doing a hand count." The 18-wheeler was pulled over about 11 miles north of Alice. The two troopers who conducted the stop specialize in commercial...