Police seizures/forfeitures getting out of hand? (3 Viewers)

[Johnny Rock]

Sorry, but no one is going to read that 627-line paragraph.

I read it. Good article. This forfeiture stuff infuriates me.

I read the whole thing too and agree wholeheartedly. Total BS. Can't people read a two minute article anymore?

 

[Road Warriors]

The regular player said the police told him, “The reason we’re here is there are Asian gangs targeting these games,” and it’s certainly true that some private gambling events in Fairfax County have been robbed by nefarious elements. The player said he wanted to respond, “So you robbed us first,” but he did not.

One of the players was not charged because he was waiting for a seat. As he was walking out, the regular said that player was told by Detective David Baucom that he was not charged “because you hadn’t bought in.”

Wonderful policing theory. People are being robbed, so arrest the people who are being robbed. BOOM no more targets and robberies decline. Win-win.

Don't forget to rob them in the process, though.

 

[Jack White]

Sorry, but no one is going to read that 627-line paragraph.

I read it. Good article. This forfeiture stuff infuriates me.

I read the whole thing too and agree wholeheartedly. Total BS. Can't people read a two minute article anymore?

I read plenty of long-form stuff.

But when it's pasted in as one long unbroken paragraph, it's no fun to read on a phone.

 

[Jack White]

Sorry, but no one is going to read that 627-line paragraph.

I read it. Good article. This forfeiture stuff infuriates me.

I read the whole thing too and agree wholeheartedly. Total BS. Can't people read a two minute article anymore?

I read plenty of long-form stuff.

But when it's pasted in as one long unbroken paragraph, it's no fun to read on a phone.

My bad. I didn't see the link at the top.

I read it.

Same old ####. Hypocritical state goons hate gambling unless they get a cut.

 

[Rayderr]

The biggest problem is that governments are using the police force essentially as tax collectors. Their #1 priority is no longer to ensure the safety of it's people, it's to generate revenue for the government. Hence red light and speed cameras. Raids where they take possessions and cash is just a higher stakes version.

 

[Ignoramus]

The regular player said the police told him, The reason were here is there are Asian gangs targeting these games, and its certainly true that some private gambling events in Fairfax County have been robbed by nefarious elements. The player said he wanted to respond, So you robbed us first, but he did not.

One of the players was not charged because he was waiting for a seat. As he was walking out, the regular said that player was told by Detective David Baucom that he was not charged because you hadnt bought in.

Wonderful policing theory. People are being robbed, so arrest the people who are being robbed. BOOM no more targets and robberies decline. Win-win.

Makes sense to me.The other day a cop seized my money after I withdrew it from a gas station ATM. He kindly explained that they were there because gangs had been targeting ATMs in that area. Can't be too safe!

 

[Ignoramus]

Learn to Preview Post, people.

Link to article

On a quiet weeknight among the stately manors of Great Falls, ten men sat around a table in the basement of a private home last November playing high stakes poker. Suddenly, masked and heavily armed SWAT team officers from the Fairfax County Police Department burst through the door, pointed their assault rifles at the players and ordered them to put their hands on the table. The players complied. Their cash was seized, including a reported $150,000 from the game’s host, and eight of the ten players were charged with the Class 3 misdemeanor of illegal gambling, punishable by a maximum fine of $500. The minimum buy-in for the game was $20,000, with re-buys allowed if you lost your first twenty grand.


This was not your everyday cash game with the neighbors. The buy-in was twice what it costs to enter the World Series of Poker’s main event in Las Vegas (though the Great Falls players did not have to pay the whole $20,000 up front). Two established poker pros were at the Great Falls table and another was hosting the game, taking a roughly 1.5 percent cut from the buy-ins to pay for two dealers and two assistants to make coffee runs or give massages to the players. “Taking a cut” is what elevates a poker game, in the minds of the Fairfax police, into a criminal enterprise. But the host has not been charged and the search warrant used to raid the house remains sealed. The host declined to comment.

One regular at the game said he glanced out the French doors in the basement, and “I saw these helmets bobbing up and down” in the darkened backyard. The shadowy figures yelled that they were Fairfax County police with a search warrant, then opened the door and about eight officers in black marched in. “They were all yelling, ‘Does anybody have a weapon?’ and ‘please don’t move’” at the seated players, the player said. “One pointed his assault rifle at me and said, ‘Hands up.’ And I can’t believe this is happening.”

There were no guns at the table, and no resistance, the player said. “They could’ve sent a retired detective with a clipboard and gotten the same result,” he added. He requested anonymity so as not to jeopardize the case against him or his professional career.

Raids by Fairfax police on private poker games are not new — a similar game in Great Falls was raided in 2005. But in 2006, a SWAT team was called in to arrest a single suspect accused of betting on football games, and Officer Deval Bullock accidentally shot and killed optometrist Salvatore J. Culosi Jr. After that, the Fairfax police said they would use their tactical teams more judiciously. Still, the Fairfax police have continued to be unapologetic in their aggressive enforcement of gambling laws, as seen by their willingness to bet and lose large amounts of money to take down sports bookies. They will even make the effort to place an informant in a poker game and they are still willing to wield their heavy artillery to take down a roomful of unarmed poker players.

Fairfax police said they could not discuss the Great Falls case since it is still under investigation. “In general though,” police spokeswoman Lucy Caldwell said, “detectives have seen that some of the organized card games, even in private homes, may involve hundreds of thousands of dollars. At times, we’ve seen illegal activity involved in these games. Additionally, at times, illegal weapons are present. With these large amounts of cash involved, the risks are high. We’ve worked cases where there have been armed robberies.”

After they got over the shock of staring down the barrels of high-powered semi-automatic assault rifles, then being interrogated and charged with a crime, the players and dealers all shared a similar goal: to wriggle out of getting a conviction, even a misdemeanor, on their records. Their lawyers were ready to go to trial in Fairfax General District Court last Thursday, and to challenge whether the Virginia gambling law’s definition of “games of chance” covers poker. In 2013, the Supreme Court considered and then declined to rule on whether poker qualified as a game of skill, and the Great Falls case appeared ripe to make legal history.

But the Fairfax prosecutors, with what the lawyers said was the police detectives’ blessing, cut them a deal: stay clean for six months and the gambling charge would be dismissed, and eligible to be expunged from their record. And for those who had cash seized from them — one player had more than $20,000, the regular player said — the police agreed to return 60 percent of the money, and keep 40 percent. Though the police use of civil forfeiture is being revised in federal courts, in Virginia state courts the local police agency may keep 100 percent of what they seize. And what the Fairfax police organized crime and narcotics section, which investigates gambling, will do with their seizure proceeds, they will not say.

The defendants decided to take their deals and keep their mouths shut. Only one player spoke for the record, though his account of events was verified by others involved in the case.

The Great Falls game itself is not a big secret. It has been running regularly for several years now, and big name pros such as Phil Laak and Antonio Esfandiari have played there. Players are given $20,000 in chips, though much of that is on credit, the regular player said, and at the end of the night those who lose write checks to make up for what they owe, rather than carry big cash to the game. The only games played are no limit Texas Hold Em and pot limit Omaha.

An informant apparently assisted the police with their investigation, the regular player and lawyers said. A new player joined the game the week before the raid, the regular player said, and it was clear to the poker vets that “he didn’t know what he was doing” while playing Omaha, a nine-card version of stud hold ‘em poker. Then, he left after only playing for two hours — highly unusual for anyone who sits down in the middle of a serious poker group like this one.

The following week, the new guy was back. And after the SWAT team made its entrance, followed by the detectives from the organized crime section, the new guy was the first person taken out of the room to be interviewed, the regular said. Then, the man was not charged.

The rest of the players, including the host and the two dealers, were given numbers and interviewed individually, the player said. He said two detectives asked him about the game and then one said, “Did you know that this game is illegal?” The player said he told the police, “to me, it’s a bunch of consenting adults playing cards in somebody’s basement.”

But Virginia law defines “illegal gambling” as any wager of money made for a chance to win a prize or stake based on any contest “the outcome of which is uncertain or a matter of chance.” Virginia law does allow private “games of chance” if there is “no operator” involved, but anyone who operates a game with “gross revenue of $2,000 or more in any single day” is in violation. The player said the host of the Great Falls game only took a cut of the money to pay the dealers and player assistants.

The regular player said the police told him, “The reason we’re here is there are Asian gangs targeting these games,” and it’s certainly true that some private gambling events in Fairfax County have been robbed by nefarious elements. The player said he wanted to respond, “So you robbed us first,” but he did not.

One of the players was not charged because he was waiting for a seat. As he was walking out, the regular said that player was told by Detective David Baucom that he was not charged “because you hadn’t bought in.”

Baucom was also the detective who had been making football bets with Culosi in 2005 and early 2006, and then made the request for a SWAT team to help him serve a search warrant and arrest Culosi, though the optometrist had no criminal record and no known weapons. Culosi walked out to Baucom’s vehicle in his socks, handed Baucom his winnings, and Baucom signaled for his SWAT backup. Bullock pulled up, climbed out of his SUV and said the door banged him on his left side, causing him to involuntarily pull the trigger and shoot Culosi once in the chest. The killing cost Fairfax taxpayers $2 million to pay a settlement of the Culosi family’s wrongful death suit.

Meanwhile, then-Chief David M. Rohrer in 2007 issued a detailed report of the Culosi incident, including the decision by Baucom and his superiors to involve a SWAT team. “Our administrative investigation identified gaps in decision-making guidelines,” Rohrer wrote. “We are modifying our policies so the use of any higher- or high-risk tactics is not ‘automatic,’ but rather must be warranted and reasonable based on articulated criteria and a risk assessment in each case.”

Caldwell, the police spokeswoman, said this week that “based on our training and experience with these high stakes gambling cases, we analyze information in advance, and, very carefully. At times, the SWAT is deployed based on information we’ve gleaned. Obviously, this is a case-by-case basis; it is not ‘routine.’”

“It’s crazy,” said the regular, looking back on the night of the raid. “They had this ‘shock and awe’ with all of these guys, with their rifles up and wearing ski masks.” He noted that the Justice Department recently revamped its guidelines for civil forfeiture cases, following reports by The Post about abuses of the seizure process by police around the country, including Fairfax. But in Virginia, the seizure law remains the same, and agencies may keep what they seize, after going through a court process.

 

[Johnny Rock]

We need to rally together to put the cat back in the bag. The loss of privacy is staggering. The database is growing and is searchable by agencies of all types.

"Asset Forfeiture Drives Justice Department's License Plate Tracking"

http://www.newsweek.com/asset-forfeiture-drives-justice-departments-license-plate-tracking-302621

 

[SacramentoBob]

The regular player said the police told him, The reason were here is there are Asian gangs targeting these games, and its certainly true that some private gambling events in Fairfax County have been robbed by nefarious elements. The player said he wanted to respond, So you robbed us first, but he did not.

One of the players was not charged because he was waiting for a seat. As he was walking out, the regular said that player was told by Detective David Baucom that he was not charged because you hadnt bought in.

Wonderful policing theory. People are being robbed, so arrest the people who are being robbed. BOOM no more targets and robberies decline. Win-win.

Makes sense to me.The other day a cop seized my money after I withdrew it from a gas station ATM. He kindly explained that they were there because gangs had been targeting ATMs in that area. Can't be too safe!

We can also arrest all women to protect them from rapists.

 

[Ramsay Hunt Experience]

What's interesting about the Fairfax case is that's pretty much the definition of what is considered an appropriate use of civil asset forfeiture. The funds were being used in the violation of a criminal statute.

I suppose I would argue that only the 1.5% cut for the host was really contraband and subject to forfeiture, but if you divorce the forfeiture from the aggressive enforcement of the gambling statute, its hard to find it as egregious as the type of forfeitures we're seeing in highway stops.

I understand that they were going to argue that poker does not qualify as a game of chance. I've done a bit in this field and the issue actually has been litigated in many states. That argument almost always loses.

 

[Zow]

The biggest problem is that governments are using the police force essentially as tax collectors. Their #1 priority is no longer to ensure the safety of it's people, it's to generate revenue for the government. Hence red light and speed cameras. Raids where they take possessions and cash is just a higher stakes version.

In my jurisdiction, law enforcement gets to keep a lot of what they seize. Most of their offices' equipment is seized and forfeited computers, iPads, etc. Heck, they even have a plane that was forfeited and seized that they now use. So, arguably, there's some incentive.

What's been happening on a lot of drug cases in my jurisdiction is that law enforcement is stopping vehicles traveling through, finding large sums of cash through some sort of consent search or dog-hit, claiming the money and other innocuous evidence is indicia of drug sales, arresting the guy, then, when the defendant obtains counsel and counsel points out to the state that probable cause is severely lacking, there's a plea offer made to the Defendant that the case will be dismissed if the defendant agrees to forfeit the money. Defense attorney, not happy with the process, still has to advise of the huge benefit of the dismissal and, usually defendant agrees.

 

[Rayderr]

The biggest problem is that governments are using the police force essentially as tax collectors. Their #1 priority is no longer to ensure the safety of it's people, it's to generate revenue for the government. Hence red light and speed cameras. Raids where they take possessions and cash is just a higher stakes version.

In my jurisdiction, law enforcement gets to keep a lot of what they seize. Most of their offices' equipment is seized and forfeited computers, iPads, etc. Heck, they even have a plane that was forfeited and seized that they now use. So, arguably, there's some incentive.

What's been happening on a lot of drug cases in my jurisdiction is that law enforcement is stopping vehicles traveling through, finding large sums of cash through some sort of consent search or dog-hit, claiming the money and other innocuous evidence is indicia of drug sales, arresting the guy, then, when the defendant obtains counsel and counsel points out to the state that probable cause is severely lacking, there's a plea offer made to the Defendant that the case will be dismissed if the defendant agrees to forfeit the money. Defense attorney, not happy with the process, still has to advise of the huge benefit of the dismissal and, usually defendant agrees.

Pretty much my point. Even if the money seized can only be used for law enforcement, it's still generating revenue for the government as money is fungible and the money they didn't spend on the Police thanks to the seizures goes to someplace else.

 

[Mister CIA]

Thieves and Liars

Let's all chip in and buy a majority stake in a dusty town along an Oklahoma interstate.

Step 2: profit

Sherriff's gotta eat

 

[Johnny Rock]

Sickening. It's like the mafia. Get this stuff straightened out America! So embarrassing.

No wonder people don't trust the cops and are only looking to "get some" themselves. There's no morals or ethics anymore. 

 

[renesauz]

Thieves and Liars

Let's all chip in and buy a majority stake in a dusty town along an Oklahoma interstate.

Step 2: profit

Sherriff's gotta eat

I've read about this kind of thing before, and it's disgusting. I don't have a real problem with seizing/holding suspicious cash, but keeping it should absolutely require a conviction. Without an arrest and CONVICTION, common sense and our entire national sense of justice demands it be returned. It's absolutely disgusting that, many times, it doesn't.

 

[[icon]]

New electronic device allows police to seize money from drivers right out of bank accounts and credit cards
 

Sounds legit.

Wow. 

 

[johnnycakes]

How's a perp supposed to hire a lawyer if all his cash has been seized?

 

[Homer J Simpson]

New electronic device allows police to seize money from drivers right out of bank accounts and credit cards
 

Sounds legit.

Un####ingbelievable

 

[Frank Drebin]

How's a perp supposed to hire a lawyer if all his cash has been seized?

• You have the right to remain silent and refuse to answer questions.
  
• Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law.
  
• You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to the police and to have an attorney present during questioning now or in the future.
  
• If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish.
  
• If you decide to answer questions now without an attorney present, you will still have the right to stop answering at any time until you talk to an attorney.
  
• Knowing and understanding your rights as I have explained them to you, are you willing to answer my questions without an attorney present?
  

 

[msommer]

Only guilty people need lawyers, that's all the evidence they'll need to convict.

Donald Trump has lawyers.....

 

[sbonomo]

New electronic device allows police to seize money from drivers right out of bank accounts and credit cards
 

Sounds legit.




 

well, yet another reason not to go to OKC.  Let's get Durant and Westbrook out of there ASAP

 

[Steve Tasker]

Erie County district attorney adopts forfeiture policy for DWI felons

Drivers facing a second felony driving-while-intoxicated charge may lose their vehicles under a forfeiture policy being adopted by the Erie County District Attorney’s office and other prosecutors in New York State.

Under the “Drink and Drive, Lose Your Ride” campaign, prosecutors would seize the vehicles and auction them. Money from the sales would support further DWI enforcement and the state Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services.

“There are still people out there who repeatedly drink and drive,” acting District Attorney Michael J. Flaherty Jr. said in a press release. “This new policy adds more serious consequences and helps drive home the message that it will not be tolerated.”

The new policy comes days before the end-of-summer Labor Day weekend, which officials call a peak time for drunken driving crashes and fatalities.

“Unfortunately, we see too many DWI offenders, even those who have had their driver’s license taken away, still get back behind the wheel drunk, “ Flaherty said. “This new policy goes a step further in keeping the repeat offenders from putting themselves and others in danger on the roads.”

The policy affects offenders after their second felony arrest. Drivers face a felony DWI charge if they have been convicted of a DWI in the previous 10 years, have three DWI convictions in the past 15 years, or have been charged with driving drunk with a passenger 15 year old or younger in the vehicle.

Prosecutors would be able to confiscate any vehicles that are owned by or primarily driven by the offender.

I'm sure car dealerships will love it when the police start taking leased vehicles under civil forfeiture.

 

[Peyton Marino]

I don't see the problem here. Police have to get money somehow. Better to steal it from dirtbag criminals and drug addicts than to steal it from hardworking Americans through taxation.

lol holy ####

 

[Cjw_55106]

Erie County district attorney adopts forfeiture policy for DWI felons

I'm sure car dealerships will love it when the police start taking leased vehicles under civil forfeiture.

A leased vehicle is no different than a car that hasnt been fully paid for. Either way, the Dbag that continues to drive drunk is responsible for the cost. I dont have an issue with this. This country is way to lenient with drunk drivers. 

 

[Steve Tasker]

A leased vehicle is no different than a car that hasnt been fully paid for. Either way, the Dbag that continues to drive drunk is responsible for the cost. I dont have an issue with this. This country is way to lenient with drunk drivers. 

Note also that the article implies that the authorities can take any vehicles owned or primarily driven by the offender.  So if the person has 4 vehicles, the police can just take all of them?  Seems legit.

 

[Cjw_55106]

Note also that the article implies that the authorities can take any vehicles owned or primarily driven by the offender.  So if the person has 4 vehicles, the police can just take all of them?  Seems legit.

Yeah, maybe we should just start with the one car until they kill someone. Then they can go in and take them all. 

 

[SacramentoBob]

well, yet another reason not to go to OKC.  Let's get Durant and Westbrook out of there ASAP

This explains a lot.