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Re: NYT- Law Lets IRS Seizes Cash On Suspicion, No Crime
Boy, the bullhorn's getting loud on this one, isn't it? I wonder why the media's picking it up everywhere now? Probably the FIRE-boys are getting sick of paying fines, considering these laws are used mostly against bankers...Originally posted by vt View Post -
Re: NYT- Law Lets IRS Seizes Cash On Suspicion, No Crime
They should get the FIRE boys.
I'm concerned about the honest, small business/practice.Comment
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Re: NYT- Law Lets IRS Seizes Cash On Suspicion, No Crime
These laws may be mostly used against bankers but it appears regular people are getting caught in the net, too. The burden of proof should be higher and the perverse incentive of government workers being able to keep a percentage of the assets should be eliminated.Originally posted by dcarrigg View PostComment
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Re: NYT- Law Lets IRS Seizes Cash On Suspicion, No Crime
So because half of forfeitures involve white collar crime you are fine with this? Wouldn't this restaurant owner who deposits just under $10,000 of legally made money be guilty of white collar crime? Is this the kind of "FIRE-boys" you think need to be fined and jailed?Originally posted by dcarrigg View Post
It's disturbing that we live in a society where the government says you have to fill out paperwork if you want to deposit or withdraw more than $10,000 of your own cash. And in addition, if you deposit less to avoid the paperwork, you're guilty of a crime, even if the money is completely legit. How can it ever be proved whether someone was purposefully evading the requirement or just felt like withdrawing $9,900 dollars? It's basically a thoughtcrime.
But why should anyone care if the government gets to seize your assets before even charging you with a crime based on their subjective assessment that you secretly meant to avoid their bureaucratic paperwork? After all, only a criminal would resist telling the government everything they do and being continuously monitored.Comment
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Re: NYT- Law Lets IRS Seizes Cash On Suspicion, No Crime
Originally posted by dcarrigg View Post
The only problem I see here is that the "forefiture" is just extortion/protection money. The real crimes are still being ignored. It's sort of a cat and mouse game with the government pretending to "punish" bankers with petty little fines while the crimes actually go unpunished. Meanwhile there are big bucks to be made by using these laws to harass scads of regular people.
These laws are not "the best we can do" they are a charade that are sporadically used for legitimate cases and widely abused on the side.Comment
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Re: NYT- Law Lets IRS Seizes Cash On Suspicion, No Crime
Like I said in my earlier post, if you're innocent or they don't indict within 60 days, you get the money back. It's written clearly into the law. Not only do they have to pay the money back, but they are required to pay legal fees if the seizure is wrongful, as well as incidental costs like travel fees, and interest payments for the period that property was seized.Originally posted by LorenS View Post
Asset Forfeiture isn't an alternative to law suits or criminal charges. It is a separate tool. DOJ needs to be able to snatch big-time dirty cash before indicting white collar criminals, otherwise it disappears through an offshore shell rabbit hole never to be heard or seen from again.
There were only 1,807 instances of Civil Forfeiture in the United States in 2012. 0.0005% of Americans were hit with Federal civil forfeiture. Meanwhile, there were 28,600 arrests for marijuana in New York City alone. So what's really over the top here?
I don't have any stats on how many cases of Federal Civil Asset Forfeiture were wrong and had to be paid back. But I'd guess maybe 100 if they've got a 90-95% indictment rate.
It really doesn't seem that crazy to me when you look at the stats in perspective instead of just the few anecdotes where they clearly got it wrong.
And what I imagine they're doing is running forensic accounting techniques - like measuring deposit amounts against their predicted distribution in Benford's Law - and popping up with red flags when people have a disproportionate number of transactions just under a cliff like $10,000 because it's an obvious and well-known red flag for money laundering and fraud where people make up random numbers.
And if it meant that 1,000 white collar criminals got their comeuppance, and 100 folks had their accounts frozen for 60 days, I'm fine with it. We crack down on blue collar criminals 1,000 times stronger every day. We execute innocent people. If you're really outraged at overreach in the American Justice System, there are far better places to start than Federal Civil Asset Forfeiture.
Last edited by dcarrigg; October 27, 2014, 04:45 PM.Comment
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Re: NYT- Law Lets IRS Seizes Cash On Suspicion, No Crime
60 days with no access to cash will put many small businesses out of business.Comment
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Re: NYT- Law Lets IRS Seizes Cash On Suspicion, No Crime
Loretta Lynch’s Money Pot
Someone should ask the AG nominee about the Hirsch brothers.
ENLARGE
Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch GETTY IMAGES
268 COMMENTS
Prosecutors have taken a yen to civil forfeiture laws, which they’ve used to shore up state and municipal budgets with sums from confiscated private property. One happy joiner is Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch, whose U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York has been an enthusiastic grabber of private assets.
Prosecutors love the practice because it allows them to seize cash and property before the target is charged with a crime. Intended to be used against drug dealers and their ill-gotten gains, the law has become an all-purpose cash machine for police departments and prosecutors who often make forfeiture calls based not on the suspected crime or the perpetrator but on the desirability of the available goods to be seized.
For Jeffrey, Richard and Mitch Hirsch, three brothers in Long Island, the law allowed the federal government to drain their bank account while never charging them with a crime. In May 2012 the feds confiscated $446,651.11 from the account the brothers use for deposits from their 27-year-old Bi-County Distributors, which stocks convenience stores in the region with candy and snack food.
According to the federal government, the brothers came under suspicion because of the frequent small deposits they made in the bank. Under federal law, banks are required to report cash deposits of more than $10,000 at a time to the Internal Revenue Service. Frequent deposits beneath the $10,000 threshold can also trigger federal scrutiny on suspicion the depositors are seeking to evade federal oversight for crimes like money laundering or drug trafficking.
The Hirsch brothers run a small business that deals in small amounts of cash, a fact that the government surely noticed, since they were never charged with a crime. But more than two years after the government grabbed the hundreds of thousands of dollars, none of it has been returned. According to the Institute for Justice, which is representing the family in a lawsuit, the government has also denied the Hirsches a prompt hearing on the forfeiture, putting it in violation of the 2000 Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act.
Ms. Lynch’s office is a major forfeiture operation, bringing in more than $113 million in civil actions from 123 cases between 2011 and 2013, according to the Justice Department. This is a trend across the country. Under a program known as equitable sharing, state and local law enforcement also get a piece of federal civil forfeiture actions. Between 2003 and 2011, annual payments from that program rose to $450 million from $218 million, according to the Government Accountability Office.
The asset seizure threatened the Hirsch business, which relies on cash flow to pay vendors and other overhead. But for the government, the financial incentives of civil forfeiture have trumped concerns about the due process rights of citizens. The prospect of a big payday is leading to abuses, and law enforcement has profited from a system that treats citizens as guilty until they can prove their innocence.
Ms. Lynch will get her nomination hearing in a few weeks. Someone should ask when she thinks the Hirsches deserve theirs?
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