Fine or Theft??

[talltex]

A few days ago, Cameron County officials announced they had reached a plea deal with a man that Sheriff's deputies arrested for DWI when he was found passed out in his car on a FM road on 3/26/18. He was charged with Class B misdemeanor DWI and taken to jail. The deputies then discovered $830,000.00 in cash in the vehicle along with bags containing "illegal gambling equipment." He was not charged with anything other than the DWI charge. The DA's office offered him a deal: His DWI punishment would be the night he'd already spent in jail, and no other charges filed in exchange for his forfeiting $540,515.95 of the cash to the DA's office and Sheriff's Dept. and he could keep $291,047.05 of the cash. It would appear that they were just interested in the money and he was free to leave with the "illegal gambling equipment" and go on about his business. There is no law against possessing large amounts of cash, other than "fruit of the poison tree" legal argument--if you can't prove that the money was the result of an illegal crime there's no right to seize it. He wasn't charged with any crime related to the money. I have a problem with that. Evidently he chose to pay them off rather than risk involving any others he was doing business with. That deal just reeks--he should have either been charged or released with the money. (KWTX news)

[Abraham]

Nothing 'fishy' about that story, eh...?

[skeathley]

If they were justified in confiscating the cash, they would have kept all of it, and filed the appropriate charges.

[The Annoyed Man]

I have a serious problem with asset forfeiture. If they have a case, let them prosecute it. THAT would be them actually doing their jobs. On the face of it, it appears that they have a case. Just maybe they don’t have a case, in which case this would be pure use of office to intimidate someone into being squeezed for the money.

Mind you, I am not particularly sympathetic to gambling - legal or otherwise. I think it is a sinful foolish waste. BUT....... in a FREE society, people can gamble if they want. I don’t think they should. But that’s just my opinion and it doesn’t count for much.

Whatever my opinion about gambling, if this guy has broken the law, he ought to be prosecuted. If the DA’s office doesn’t think they can win the prosecution, they ought to just confiscate the illegal gambling equipment, let the guy go with the $830,000 - WHICH IS NOT THEIR MONEY! If they can prove that it is ill-gotten gains, then they can keep the entire amount. If they can’t, then that’s just too bad. This is exactly the kind of case that would be used to justify asset forfeitures against innocent people.

[bblhd672]

Government approved and SCOTUS sanctioned theft. King George would be proud.

[Soccerdad1995]

I have a serious problem with asset forfeiture. If they have a case, let them prosecute it. THAT would be them actually doing their jobs. On the face of it, it appears that they have a case. Just maybe they don’t have a case, in which case this would be pure use of office to intimidate someone into being squeezed for the money.

Mind you, I am not particularly sympathetic to gambling - legal or otherwise. I think it is a sinful foolish waste. BUT....... in a FREE society, people can gamble if they want. I don’t think they should. But that’s just my opinion and it doesn’t count for much.

Whatever my opinion about gambling, if this guy has broken the law, he ought to be prosecuted. If the DA’s office doesn’t think they can win the prosecution, they ought to just confiscate the illegal gambling equipment, let the guy go with the $830,000 - WHICH IS NOT THEIR MONEY! If they can prove that it is ill-gotten gains, then they can keep the entire amount. If they can’t, then that’s just too bad. This is exactly the kind of case that would be used to justify asset forfeitures against innocent people.

This sounds like a poster child case for why Civil Asset Forfeiture is such a bad thing. This guy may have been running an underground casino, and doing all sorts of bad things, but the government is still not allowed to seize his assets without due process. And the laws have been twisted in such a way that your next best alternative to one of these "agreements" is a lengthy and difficult court fight where the burden of proof is on you to prove that your money was obtained legally.

I'm not sure what "illegal gambling equipment" is, but I'm guessing maybe slot machines? Everything else I can think of that you would need to run even a full fledged casino would be legal (cards, table top felt, roulette wheels, etc). Maybe this is an archaic local law or something.

I also agree with TAM on gambling, which I define as risking your money with a negative expectation in the blind hope that you will get "lucky" and win. This describes most (99.9%+) of the people who buy lottery tickets, play slot machines, etc., and a slightly lower percentage of people who play games like Blackjack and Poker, as well as most individual investors in the stock market. I detest "gamblers" and the gambling instinct that so many people are unable to control.

I saw a common form of gambling late last night as I was driving home on I-59 in Houston. A car passed me on the right, at high speed, squeezing into the space between me and the car in front. I checked and sure enough, there was a good quarter mile between me and the car behind, so no reason to squeeze in front instead of just changing lanes behind me as the left two lanes were wide open. Then a second car did the same thing. I slowed down a bit and increased following distance. A few minutes later a pickup cut me off (I was in the far right lane now) and then swerved back to the left lanes before swerving back to the right in front of a car ahead and trying to take the exit onto the Westpark Tollway. Again, he could have easily just gotten to the exit behind that car. Instead, he glanced off the right side barrier before overcorrecting and smashing head on into the left side barrier, completely blocking the off ramp. The front of hIs vehicle was physically up and over the concrete barrier. I stopped to make sure he was OK. He was up and out of his vehicle and was walking around. He did not respond to my shouts of whether he was OK, and given the erratic driving up to that point, I chose not to get too close. Rather, I just called 911 and while I was on with them a tow truck showed up so I maneuvered out of their way and found another way home. That young man gambled last night, and he lost. Hopefully his loss will only be financial and maybe also the loss of driving privileges for a while.

[spectre]

I think we all know what the founding fathers would have done. Enough said?

[thatguyoverthere]

Government approved and SCOTUS sanctioned theft. King George would be proud.

Well, I agree with the statement, that is. The statement is true; the practice is abhorrent. But it has been deemed by courts all over the land to be a legal practice. And somehow we mere citizens have not been able yet to convince our representatives to make it specifically illegal. Just the opposite, they seem to enjoy the practice. Certainly the government entities that benefit directly from the ill-gotten goods absolutely enjoy the benefits of this legalized theft. It's just us lowly peons that seem to have a problem with it. But then, seems nobody cares much about what we think.

Sorry, but the guy is toast. At least his money is, anyway.

Again, a terrible, terrible practice. Unfortunately, as things stand right now, based on past similar experiences that I've read about, I would say the gentleman has little to no chance of recovering his property that was stolen by the government.