mirror of
https://github.com/nhammer514/textfiles-politics.git
synced 2024-12-26 07:49:37 -05:00
55 lines
3.4 KiB
Plaintext
55 lines
3.4 KiB
Plaintext
<conspiracyFile>Police Forces Keep the Take
|
||
The ``loot'' that's coming back to police forces all over the nation has
|
||
redefined law-enforcement success. It now has a dollar sign in front of
|
||
it.
|
||
For nearly eighteen months, undercover Arizona State Troopers worked as
|
||
drug couriers driving nearly 13 tons of marijuana from the Mexican
|
||
border to stash houses around Tucson. They hoped to catch the Mexican
|
||
suppliers and distributors on the American side before the dope got on
|
||
the streets. // But they overestimated their ability to control the
|
||
distribution. Almost every ounce was sold the minute they dropped it at
|
||
the houses. // Even though the troopers were responsible for tons of
|
||
drugs getting loose in Tucson, the man who supervised the setup still
|
||
believes it was worthwhile. It was ``a success from a cost-benefit
|
||
standpoint,'' says former assistant attorney-general John Davis. His
|
||
reasoning: It netted 20 arrests and at least $3000000 for the state
|
||
forfeiture fund.
|
||
``That kind of thinking is what frightens me,'' says Steve Sherick, a
|
||
Tucson attorney. ``The government's thirst for dollars is overcoming any
|
||
long-range view of what it is supposed to be doing, which is fighting
|
||
crime.'' // George Terwilliger III, associate deputy attorney general in
|
||
charge of the U.S. Justice Department's program emphasizes that
|
||
forfeiture does fight crime, and ``we're not at all apologetic about the
|
||
fact that we do benefit (financially) from it.'' // In fact, Terwilliger
|
||
wrote about how the forfeiture program financially benefits police
|
||
departments in the 1991 Police Buyer's Guide of Police Chief Magazine.
|
||
Between 1986 and 1990, the U.S. Justice Department generated $1500000000
|
||
from forfeiture and estimates that it will take in $500000000
|
||
this year, five times the amount it collected in 1986. // District
|
||
attorney's offices throughout Pennsylvania handled $4500000 in
|
||
forfeitures last year; Allegheny County (ED: Pgh is in Allegheny County)
|
||
$218000 and the city of Pittsburgh, $191000 -- up from $9000 four
|
||
years ago. // Forfeiture pads the smallest towns coffers. In Lexana,
|
||
Kan, a Kansas City suburb of 29000 ``we've got about $250000 moving
|
||
in court right now,'' says narcotic detective Don Crohn. // Despite the
|
||
huge amounts flowing to police departments, there are few public
|
||
accounting procedures. Police who get a cut of the federal forfeiture
|
||
funds must sign a form saying merely they will use it for ``law
|
||
enforcement purposes.'' // To Philadelphia police that meant new air
|
||
conditioning. In Warren County, N.J., it meant use of a forfeited yellow
|
||
Corvette for the chief assistant prosecutor. //
|
||
{At this point in the article there is a picture of three people in
|
||
an empty apartment, with the following caption:
|
||
Judy Mulford, 31, and her 13-year old twins, Chris, left, and
|
||
Jason, are down to essentials in their Lake Park, Fla., home,
|
||
which the government took in 1989 after claiming her husband,
|
||
Joseph, stored cocaine there. Neither parent has been
|
||
criminally charged, but in April a forfeiture jury said Mrs.
|
||
Mulford must forfeit the house she bought herself with an
|
||
insurance settlement. The Mulfords have divorced, and she has
|
||
sold most of her belongings to cover legal bills. She's asked
|
||
for a new trial and lives in the near-empty house pending a
|
||
decision. }
|
||
--- Renegade v6-27 Beta
|
||
* Origin: Shark's Mouth <data type="phoneNumber">313-658-1110</data> 750 MEGS Dual Amiga/IBM (23:313/108)
|
||
</conspiracyFile> |