Pubdate: Sun, 27 Apr 2014
Source: Star-Banner, The (Ocala, FL)
Copyright: 2014 The Star-Banner
Contact:  http://www.starbanner.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1533
Author: Bill Thompson

SHERIFF RAMPS UP ASSET SEIZURES

Sheriff Chris Blair's aggressive approach to street crime has raised
the seizure of criminal suspects' assets to an unprecedented level,
agency records show.

Between 2003 and 2012, deputies working under former Sheriff Ed Dean
and officers in dedicated anti-drug units - typically teams comprised
of sheriff's deputies, Ocala police and federal agents - referred an
average of 38 forfeiture cases a year for legal review in order to
determine whether authorities could keep the goods.

Last year, Blair's first in office, the number of forfeiture cases
jumped to 57, the most of any annual total over the past decade,
according to records.

And the Sheriff's Office is on track to leave that number in the dust
in 2014.

Over the first three months of this year, investigators have filed 33
forfeiture cases for legal review.

Meantime, there has been a significant shift in who is making the
arrests and seizures - a movement that reflects Blair's campaign
promise to tamp down on street crime.

In 2011 and 2012, the last two years of Dean's administration,
dedicated anti-drug units brought 63 percent and 78 percent of the
forfeiture cases, respectively. The rest were generated by patrol forces.

That ratio flipped in 2013, as patrol deputies filed 63 percent of the
cases, while the remainder were the work of drug units.

Over the first quarter of 2014, patrol deputies - which under Blair
include the property and street crimes teams introduced by the sheriff
- - have filed 91 percent of the forfeiture cases.

The 30 seizure cases brought by sheriff's patrol deputies as of the
end of March almost equals the 36 they filed all of last year.

"It shows the difference between a sheriff with 35 years of law
enforcement experience and a sheriff who came from the business
world," Chief Deputy Fred LaTorre explained in a recent interview when
comparing Blair's outlook to Dean's.

Gregg Jerald, the Sheriff's Office's general counsel, noted that the
increase in seizures also stems from efforts to better educate
deputies on the forfeiture law, a process he began after being hired
last summer.

"We're taking contraband off the streets and out of the hands of
criminals," he said.

Federal forfeiture laws date to 1970 with the enactment of the
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, Act, which
was intended to target organized crime.

Congress expanded the law in 1978 to encompass drug cases, and in
doing so also allowed law enforcement officers to seize property
without having to charge the suspects with a crime.

States quickly followed. Florida enacted its own forfeiture law in
1980. Then 12 years later the Legislature overhauled it, adding
language to create various trust funds at the state and local levels
for depositing the proceeds of forfeited assets and spelling out how
state and local law enforcement agencies could spend them.

Under the law, the funds must go for crime prevention programs, such
as school resource officers or safe neighborhood initiatives.

If they take in more than $15,000 a year, at least 15 percent of that
must be spent on anti-drug efforts, including treatment or educational
programs.

The funding may also be used to match federal grants.

By law, using the revenue for "normal operating needs" is
prohibited.

Over the years, the Sheriff's Office has used seized assets to buy
items including computers, surveillance equipment and bulletproof
vests for drug units, and to contribute toward programs run by groups
such as the Marion County YMCA, the Boys & Girls Clubs, the Boy Scouts
and Girl Scouts, the United Way of Marion County and the Florida
Sheriffs Youth Ranch.

Funding also has helped sponsor anti-delinquency and after-school
programs, initiatives to stop the sexual exploitation of children,
efforts to call attention to missing children, and a study of local
criminal justice trends by the Public Policy Institute, the research
arm of the College of Central Florida.

"We're taking a more proactive approach," Blair explained in a recent
interview. "We're looking at the fact that we're taking money and
vehicles from the bad guys and basically assisting the good people.

"It works," he added. "We've got to protect the good
people."

Over the last three decades, with the proliferation of illegal drug
use and the escalating fight against that, the public has become
accustomed to news of big-dollar seizures that are believed to help
topple drug kingpins and cripple outlaw cartels.

Locally, drug arrests do make up the bulk of the Sheriff's Office's
forfeiture cases, whether those are initiated by drug units or patrol
cops.

And court records clearly show that many of those who were apprehended
and subjected to the forfeiture process had lengthy criminal records.

Yet if the patrol deputies are involved, drugs sometimes are not.
Suspects face being stripped of their property after being arrested by
those officers for DUI, shoplifting, burglary, armed robbery,
resisting arrest, driving with a suspended or revoked license, or
grand theft.

Last month, for instance, the Sheriff's Office completed the process
of taking a 2002 Ford Excursion that belonged to a defendant named
Eddie Joe Bryant Jr.

Bryant was arrested last year on 48 counts of possessing fraudulent
checks. In October, according to court files, he pleaded guilty to one
count of possession of more than 10 counterfeit checks and was
sentenced to three years in prison.

Kenneth Eugene Devore, on the other hand, was able to get his car
back.

The 1992 changes to the state's forfeiture law allowed authorities and
defendants to reach a settlement for the return of seized property
before the case ran its course in civil court.

Records indicate Devore, or perhaps someone representing him, paid
$7,000 last September for the return of his 2007 Lincoln Town Car,
despite the fact he is being held in the county jail awaiting trial on
27 counts of sex crimes involving a child.

According to state law, the confiscating agency can keep the property
for its own use, auction it off or donate it to a nonprofit group.

But that comes after the stuff that is seized becomes the subject of a
civil proceeding, in which the defendant, if he or she chooses, can
petition a judge to return it.

Sheriff's Office documents indicate that the agency always fights for
seized cash, but casts a more discriminating eye toward vehicles.

Cars, trucks and the occasional motorcycle or all-terrain vehicle are
not seized under certain conditions: if the agency has no use for the
vehicle; if its value is considered too low; or if money is still owed
on it, since state law says creditors rank first in line if the
contraband is sold.

At times the sheriff's staff opts against filing because of
unspecified "problems" with the probable cause related to the original
arrest, or because the suspect had borrowed the vehicle from an
"innocent owner," records show.

Such legal issues, however, don't stop law enforcement agencies from
profiting.

For example, last August a detective in Blair's street crimes unit
arrested Kayla Marie Harward on a charge of oxycodone possession.
Harward's 2008 Chevrolet Impala was seized at the time.

Harward pleaded not guilty, and for six months both Harward's criminal
case and the forfeiture filing wound through the legal system.

Then, in February, prosecutors dropped the charge against
Harward.

Still, according to records, she paid $3,500 to retrieve her
Impala.

"Sometimes the state will drop the charges, but that does not negate
the civil forfeiture," observed Jerald, Blair's general counsel.

But, he acknowledged, "It puts the judge in a tough
spot."

Jim Gray, a retired trial court judge from California and a former
federal prosecutor, said such a case epitomizes the shortcomings with
the forfeiture system that have taken root nationally over the past 30
years.

"It's a question of money. The police need more money, want more
money," said Gray, a speaker with Law Enforcement Against Prohibition,
a national group of current and former law enforcement officers and
criminal justice officials who advocate for reforming existing drug
policies.

Gray emphasized that he does not oppose seizures as a way to disrupt
the illicit drug trade. But the current system must be fixed, he said,
and he recommends letting juries decide whether the property should be
seized when someone is found guilty of a crime and changing laws so
that the forfeiture proceeds do not flow to law enforcement.

As the law stands, "the person who used to own the property has the
burden of proof to get it back," he said. "This is not what we want to
have in our country."
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MAP posted-by: Matt