alt.fan.states.florida moderation
Za...@alt.fan.states.florida
two options: settle the matter by agreeing to a 50 percent
* forfeiture, or the money will be returned to the IRS, who might keep
* it. Alvarez's lawyer called his bluff and got the money back after
* a full year had elapsed. Loss of a full year's interest and $5000 in
* legal fees were the result.
*
* The government's abrupt assault shocked Paolo Alvarez to his core,
* leaving him with powerful feelings of fearful despair and isolation.
*
* While the fear was obviously justified, the feeling of isolation was
* way off the mark. He has lots of company.
[snip]
*
* The federal government seized the home of an elderly couple under the
* Drug War's "facilitation" provision. The judge was so embarrassed he
* gave the couple half the cash value of their house back. The drugs had
* belonged to the teenaged-grandson. "The whole program is a nightmare,"
* said their lawyer, "If it keeps up, the Justice Department is going to
* be the largest property owner in Connecticut."
[snip]
*
* Between 1985 and 1993, as a result of more than 200,000 forfeitures, the
* Justice Department Asset Forfeiture Fund took in over $3.2 billion.
*
* In 1993 alone the department took in $556 million, twenty times more
* than it did when the program began in 1985.
And what were some of the reasons of the dramatic
increase in forfeitures between 1985 and 1993?
What caused it to increase by more than a MAGNITUDE?
* "Above the Law", by David Burnham, ISBN 0-684-80699-1, 1996
*
* In June 1989, the Deputy Attorney General ordered the nation's U.S.
* attorneys to "take all possible actions" on forfeitures, even if it meant
* dropping other matters. "You will be expected to divert personnel from
* other activities."
*
* One year later, the Attorney General himself warned the U.S. attorneys
* that the Justice Department had fallen far behind its budget projection
* in the collection of assets. "We mu
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