re: The FBI took her life savings. Now she’s fighting to help others get theirs back

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Trump was a yuge LEO supporter

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FBI =/= LEO

fricking idiot

Here are the details of this:

The local police were tracking some drug dealers and started to watch this company and noticed some other nefarious characters on their radar were also using the place....and they suspected many more they did not know, so they contacted the FBI.

The FBI then got a warrant. The judge said later that his warrant authorized the seizing of just the "nest". And by that definition he meant all the records, etc of the business, not contents of the boxes.

The owners have a class action lawsuit to get their stuff. The funny thing is, they seized the contents of 1400 boxes and there are only about 1,000 in the lawsuit, I guess the other 400 considered it a cost of doing bizness and wrote it off.

And no you do not have to "show" the govt shat regarding where the money came from. There are a myriad of legal ways a person can obtain significant amounts of cash and it is none of the govt's business. In a republic, the govt has to prove you obtained it illegally, course that was in the distant past in what was once called the United States.

It's a good article. The vast majority of people will have or had little contact with law enforcement and therefore, know how things work.

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Confused by the legal jargon, Martin chose to file a petition with the bureau, the first option listed on their notice, without realizing doing so conceded that her property could be forfeited and, consequently, allowing the FBI to determine if she could get her money back.

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That right there is how good people get screwed thinking they are doing the right thing. I'll wager money with anyone here that the FBI did not explain that to her. I guarantee that people will still blindly follow anything the feds say and think they are doing the right thing. Anytime you have to do, say or sign anything, you get a lawyer no matter how insignificant it seems to you.

The deceitfulness displayed by the FBI here may get matched by the ATF pistol brace fiasco. I hope not but we will see.

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I know SCOTUS has sided with law enforcement over CAF in the past, but I would love to see a case like this go before them as (at least with what we know) there's ruling here which would make legal sense outside of limiting CAFs by finding that their reach went too far.

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There was a recent case a few years ago where the USSC had some sort of proportionality ruling, b/c some cops in Indiana took someone's vehicle b/c of a minor drug transaction. They ruled under the Excessive Fines Clause.

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"For good reason, the protection against excessive fines has been a constant shield throughout Anglo-American history: Exorbitant tolls undermine other constitutional liberties," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in the court's opinion. "Excessive fines can be used, for example, to retaliate against or chill the speech of political enemies. ... Even absent a political motive, fines may be employed in a measure out of accord with the penal goals of retribution and deterrence."

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9-0 ruling

And there is this:

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Nonetheless the ruling comes less than a week after President Donald Trump announced that he planned to draw some $600 million from civil asset forfeiture to fund new sections of the border wall. The money – about 8 percent of the project's cost – would come from the Treasury Department's Forfeiture Fund, which contains proceeds from federal investigations by the Treasury Department and the Department of Homeland Security. As a result, it would not be affected by the Supreme Court's ruling Wednesday, legal scholars say.

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So the downvoters can apologize now for their ignorance.

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Yeah because the FBI is the same as the guy patrolling the street.

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The guys patrolling the street abuse CAF worse than the FBI does, bubba.

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It’s funny watching people basically lower their IQ and ability to think because they hate Trump.

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I've been making threads on here about CAF when Trump was still on TV

These are not law enforcement officers monkey nuts, they are socialistic, communistic, ignorant, cowardly, law-breaking Democratic jackasses who would not stand up to a real man alone ever.

Cowards doing cowardly things, the jackass Dem way.

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So the 400ish that didn't complain said oh well or were probably crooks.

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Or they already got their assets back individually. It IS possible to get your property back in CAF. I've represented a guy who got his whole $30k back. It's difficult when it's cash b/c you literally have to show how you got to that amount legally. I don't know how they did it with a safe deposit box (b/c there aren't transaction ledgers), but not all contents were cash, most likely.

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She still has a right to her money unless they can prove a crime, no?

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Yes but the process of proving that is difficult and expensive. And you don't get attorney's fees back if you win. This was actually my proposal for the LA law. Basically the agency has to pay back attorney's fees if you challenge CAF and win. Would stop a lot of evil local LEOs who abuse this 100x more than the feds do.

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A key point seems to be crooked lawyers & judges along with the FBI/DOJ.

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No. Bad law.

And the FBI is small potatoes. All 50 states have their own CAF laws and their LEO abuse the hell out of them.

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And no you do not have to "show" the govt shat regarding where the money came from.

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I went through a rather extensive audit that included having to open a safety deposit box and a safe in my house. There was some cash involved and I had to prove that money was legally obtained and that the taxes had been paid on it.