Government Charges You With A Crime And Then Finds Reason To Take All Your Money So You Can't Pay For A Defense
And never mind whether you got the money through criminal activity. Because they can pretty much just say they think you did.
I've seen this happen to friends -- who, by the way, were not guilty of what they were accused of, but that doesn't matter when government as bully is calling the shots.
Radley Balko in the WaPo on the government freezing all of a defendant's assets before trial -- "even those the government itself concedes aren't tainted by any connection to criminality, thus effectively preventing that defendant from paying for his own defense."
It's difficult to imagine that the men who wrote and voted for the Bill of Rights would have both believed in the right to an attorney and in giving the government the power to make it impossible to pay for one....This particular policy is aimed at people accused of bank fraud, insider trading and other high-finance crimes. Those aren't the most sympathetic defendants. (One would hope that the likability of defendants wouldn't affect our assessment of whether a law is fair. But of course it does.) But the radical expansion of the government's power to seize property before trial grew out of the drug war. And as this exchange between Dreeben and Justice Kennedy demonstrates, there's no reason to think the policy will be limited to tycoons.
JUSTICE KENNEDY: But what is it that confines your your rationale to a specific area? It seems to me that if the government prevails in this case, every State in the union, every locality could say that in the event of assault and battery, malicious mischief, an accident caused by drunk driving, any crime involving a bodily injury, that the government is entitled to restrain disposition of assets that might be used for medical care, for pain and suffering. And this would, in effect, prevent the private bar from from practicing law unless it did so on a contingent basis.MR. DREEBEN: Justice Kennedy, it's correct that our principle is not limited to the types of crimes that are in this case. It is limited to the government making an adequate showing that at the conclusion of the case, it will have the right to the money.
Appalling and awful.
A wise comment at the WaPo, laying out where this could go:
Speckintime
How many businesses can survive if you freeze all of their assets? What a wonderful way for the government to destroy legal businesses that they don't like.
Seems like anybody running a political blog can also be taken down this way, sadly our soldiers sacrifices have not been able to protect our freedoms from the beast within.
Both parties are working for the same cause, the powers that be keep the hot potato of blame passed around so that the voters stay confused. Who is really running the show is not for the voters to know. That way the men behind the curtain can keep the voters fighting each other, while their power remains secure. It's all smoke, mirrors and misdirection to keep a population in control.
For what both parties have been doing to this country for decades Americans should be voting every incumbent out at every election and diluting the rats nest with third party candidates. Sadly the US has either become a nation of fools or the vote is a fraud and totally controlled, either way it doesn't leave too much hope for the country.
1) RETAIN a lawyer, put your mouthpiece on the payment plan so he is ready when you need him (her).
2) Incorporate, incorporate, incorporate, Montana or Nevada trust corporations will shield your assets as they are not "Yours". The government will at least have a harder time stealing your money before the fight. Montana and Nevada are preferred as the officers of the corporation are not public record.
3) Canadian banks, in Canada the government must prove that you did something which is a crime under Canadian law. None of this seizing your cash BEFORE the trial nonsense. US ATM's cannot charge you to get your own money either, so bonus! You do have to declare your overseas assets to the IRS goons, but you have to do anyway and the banks here will narc you out to the feds to get a cut of your money anyway.
warhawke223 at November 12, 2015 8:53 AM
So, I'm dealing with this very situation right now. My youngest daughter's in-laws were arrested in a rather large insurance fraud case stemming from their previous employment with a doctor. They haven't worked for him in 8+ years, and have in fact been sued numerous times by their former employer. They both had jobs prior to their arrests; she was a real estate agent and he's a Physician Assistant, and they both earned decent livings that had nothing to do with the doctor. Regardless, all their assets are frozen, and trust me, there's not very much because the doctor's lawsuits drove them into bankruptcy. However, what little money they had in the bank can't be touched, and the few personal items that could be sold to pay bills are also frozen. Oh did I mention they have 15 year old twins that I'm now raising and supporting? It's such bullshit that even though the government can't prove that their assets are from the alleged fraud (they're not), they refuse to release any of the frozen assets.
sara at November 12, 2015 9:16 AM
They haven't worked for him in 8+ years, and have in fact been sued numerous times by their former employer.
They need better lawyers. I'm pretty sure the statute of limitations will come into play here.
But if the Feds are involved, they've instituted Calvinball rules.
I R A Darth Aggie at November 12, 2015 10:47 AM
IRA - and therein lies the rub - they can't afford better attorneys because everything is frozen. It's a state action - the prosecuting attorneys are a joke and the public defenders probably have a larger case load than they can handle/want. Oh and yes, the SOL will come into play eventually, but who knows when that will be. It's a classic case of over-charging on the indictment - everybody is guilty of everything - throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. So we wait. Meanwhile, this 15 year old boy is eating me out of house and home!
sara at November 12, 2015 10:56 AM
Sara, wow. And Balko has the history right: this all started with the War on Drugs in the 1980s. The rationalization went like this: "Drug lords can afford top-notch lawyers! We can't beat them in court!" So they devised legal shananigans to prevent the drug lords from using their own assets to pay for their defense. How well did it work? I can't say. But I note that neither asset forfeiture, nor any of the other zillion edge-of-the-Constitution (and beyond) strategies that the various governments have tried has made any noticable difference.
(1) Remember again how this legal maneuver works. The government doesn't sue you, it sues your assets. Inanimate objects. Of course, inaminate objects don't have the ability to mount a defense. So the government wins by default. Shazam! (And no, you don't have standing to defend your assets. You aren't the one being sued.)
(2) Leased assets can be seized too. If you are a lessor of, say, an office space, or office furniture, or trucks, or machinery, etc., and the government goes after your lessee, the assets you own can be seized even though you are not involved in the case in any way. The government's excuse: "You should have been more careful who you leased to." It does not matter what precautions you took; you can have done the most scrupulous job possible of vetting your lessee, but the rationale still stands. You will probably get your assets back, someday, eventually, if you spend a bunch of money on legal help -- probably more than the assets are worth. And what shape will they be in when you finally get them back?
Cousin Dave at November 12, 2015 11:52 AM
"Meanwhile, this 15 year old boy is eating me out of house and home!"
The kids should be eligible for some form of public assistance, if they and the parents are indigent. Find out where to put in an application, and have the parents do what ever paperwork is necessary to get you some money.
I would also suggest a call to your legal aid office to see if they can help you navigate the paperwork.
Not doubting your story, but it doesn't seem like everything adds up here.
I would suspect that it is possible you aren't getting the whole story.
If they were arrested, this is a criminal case we are talking about, and not a civil forfeiture action. A completely different thing.
I am not in the business of offering legal advice across state lines, but if you could get me a copy of the indictment, and a location, and court name, I might be able to tell you what they are facing if found guilty, and what they are being criminally charged for.
It absolutely can't be for something that they did or stopped doing eight years ago, unless the government has judged it an ongoing criminal enterprise.
Isab at November 12, 2015 8:03 PM
Isab, I'm a paralegal, but thank you for the offer. It is in fact a criminal case - and I do know the story and I have a copy of the indictment. There are a lot of details I've left out because it's a long, complicated story. I know exactly what they're charged with, and what they're facing if convicted. Also, I have legal guardianship so I have the papers I need to go and apply for aid for these kids. The problem is if they receive any form of welfare, the parents will be asked to repay it at some point, and frankly I don't want to put them through that. So while this case differs from civil forfeiture, it is about the government freezing assets that it can't prove were received through some form of criminal enterprise.
sara at November 13, 2015 5:25 AM
@sara
At this point, I think the possibility of being required to pay back public assistance at some point in the future, is the least of these people's worries.
i may be wrong here, but bankruptcy in the near term may be the only long term solution to the financial aspect of these problems.
Isab at November 13, 2015 6:38 AM
Isab, they're already been in BK, have been for a couple of years now. No need to burden them with anything else. The fact is, I am in the position that I can afford to take care of them. All my kids have married and/or moved out and I had the space. I just honestly didn't think I'd be raising teenagers again. And dang, teenaged boys who play sports need a lot of fuel, he eats anything and everything. His twin sister though...she's a picky eater, I'm less equipped to deal with that because I never had a picky eater.
sara at November 13, 2015 8:53 AM
. And dang, teenaged boys who play sports need a lot of fuel, he eats anything and everything. His twin sister though...she's a picky eater, I'm less equipped to deal with that because I never had a picky eater.
Posted by: sara at November 13, 2015 8:53 AM
As long as she isn't living on tortilla chips, and Diet Coke, you should pretty much ignore it. Don't buy anything you don't think she should be eating.....
But by the time someone is 15, there isn't much you can do about fixing this.
I had one picky eater, and one not. Actually got called by the school once demanding that I send my son with a lunch they approved of, which of course, he would have immediately dumped in the trash. (He went three days without eating anything at all at church camp because they didn't have anything he liked)
He didn't live on junk food either.
It has been my observation with some of my older contemporaries, that the consequences of a poor childhood diet, impact the teeth, the bones, and general longevity.
The short term consequences are less obvious.
What sports does the boy play?
Isab at November 13, 2015 9:26 AM
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