MD - Cops seize $28 grand - "suspect" not charged but must "prove" his money is legal

[Anti Federalist]

From everything I can find out about this case, this person was never charged with any crime.

That fits the police theft ring profile.


Police seize large sum of money from car

January 13, 2011

http://times-news.com/local/x233959333/-NEW-Police-seize-large-sum-of-money-from-car

ROCKY GAP — Maryland State Police seized $28,000 from a 28-year-old Laurel man who had the money in his car when he was stopped for alleged traffic violations on Wednesday afternoon on Interstate 68 at Rocky Gap Road.

Oliver Tchachoua was driving a red 2010 Toyota Corolla westbound at 1:44 p.m. when police stopped him and had “numerous indicators” that led to a K9 scan of the vehicle. The scan produced a positive alert and police found 280 $100 bills.

Tchachoua was debriefed...

(Debriefed??? What the fuck does debriefed mean in this context??? - AF)

...at the Cumberland barrack and released, police said.

The investigation was turned over to the Maryland State Police Asset Forfeiture Unit in Columbia.

Tchachoua has the right to file charges in civil court and prove that he had the money legally, police said.

[oyarde]

From everything I can find out about this case, this person was never charged with any crime.

That fits the police theft ring profile.


Police seize large sum of money from car

January 13, 2011

http://times-news.com/local/x233959333/-NEW-Police-seize-large-sum-of-money-from-car

ROCKY GAP — Maryland State Police seized $28,000 from a 28-year-old Laurel man who had the money in his car when he was stopped for alleged traffic violations on Wednesday afternoon on Interstate 68 at Rocky Gap Road.

Oliver Tchachoua was driving a red 2010 Toyota Corolla westbound at 1:44 p.m. when police stopped him and had “numerous indicators” that led to a K9 scan of the vehicle. The scan produced a positive alert and police found 280 $100 bills.

Tchachoua was debriefed...

(Debriefed??? What the fuck does debriefed mean in this context??? - AF)

...at the Cumberland barrack and released, police said.

The investigation was turned over to the Maryland State Police Asset Forfeiture Unit in Columbia.

Tchachoua has the right to file charges in civil court and prove that he had the money legally, police said.

What if he steals it back from the people who stole it from him ? Where is the ACLU to help this poor guy ?

[sailingaway]

Odd. I could have sworn the burden of proof was on the prosecution.

Except in France.

[oyarde]

Odd. I could have sworn the burden of proof was on the prosecution.

Except in France.

Municipalites have been doing this , it should not hold up in court . They do it because they get away with it .

[invisible]

Odd. I could have sworn the burden of proof was on the prosecution.

That's exactly why they haven't fabricated a crime to charge him with.

[Dr.3D]

So now they can take anything you own and then if you can't prove it was yours, they get to keep it?
What kind of crap is that?

This was just plain theft on the part of those taking the mans money.

[muzzled dogg]

thanks, facebookized

[Dr.3D]

Municipalites have been doing this , it should not hold up in court . They do it because they get away with it .

Do they get away with it even if the victim presses charges?

[Anti Federalist]

Happens all the time, every day.



The Forfeiture Racket

Police and prosecutors won't give up their license to steal.

http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/26/the-forfeiture-racket

Around 3 in the morning on January 7, 2009, a 22-year-old college student named Anthony Smelley was pulled over on Interstate 70 in Putnam County, Indiana. He and two friends were en route from Detroit to visit Smelley’s aunt in St. Louis. Smelley, who had recently received a $50,000 settlement from a car accident, was carrying around $17,500 in cash, according to later court documents. He claims he was bringing the money to buy a new car for his aunt.

The officer who pulled him over, Lt. Dwight Simmons of the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department, said that Smelley had made an unsafe lane change and was driving with an obscured license plate. When Simmons asked for a driver’s license, Smelley told him he had lost it after the accident. Simmons called in Smelley’s name and discovered that his license had actually expired. The policeman asked Smelley to come out of the car, patted him down, and discovered a large roll of cash in his front pocket, in direct contradiction to Smelley’s alleged statement in initial questioning that he wasn’t, in fact, carrying much money.

A record check indicated that Smelley had previously been arrested (though not charged) for drug possession as a teenager, so the officer called in a K-9 unit to sniff the car for drugs. According to the police report, the dog gave two indications that narcotics might be present. So Smelley and his passengers were detained and the police seized Smelley’s $17,500 cash under Indiana’s asset forfeiture law.

But a subsequent hand search of the car turned up nothing except an empty glass pipe containing no drug residue in the purse of Smelley’s girlfriend. Lacking any other evidence, police never charged anybody in the car with a drug-related crime. Yet not only did Putnam County continue to hold onto Smelley’s money, but the authorities initiated legal proceedings to confiscate it permanently.

Smelley’s case was no isolated incident. Over the past three decades, it has become routine in the United States for state, local, and federal governments to seize the property of people who were never even charged with, much less convicted of, a crime. Nearly every year, according to Justice Department statistics, the federal government sets new records for asset forfeiture. And under many state laws, the situation is even worse: State officials can seize property without a warrant and need only show “probable cause” that the booty was connected to a drug crime in order to keep it, as opposed to the criminal standard of proof “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Instead of being innocent until proven guilty, owners of seized property all too often have a heavier burden of proof than the government officials who stole their stuff.

[Dr.3D]

Happens all the time, every day.


~snip
That kind of activity needs to be challenged as illegal search and seizure. We are supposed to be protected from this sort of thing by the United States Constitution.

How can people be secure in their possessions if this is allowed to persist?

[amy31416]

That kind of activity needs to be challenged as illegal search and seizure. We are supposed to be protected from this sort of thing by the United States Constitution.

How can people be secure in their possessions if this is allowed to persist?

Keep it in the bank.
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HAHAHAHAAHA...

:D

[Anti Federalist]

That kind of activity needs to be challenged as illegal search and seizure. We are supposed to be protected from this sort of thing by the United States Constitution.

How can people be secure in their possessions if this is allowed to persist?

They are not.

Us patriot, freedom, kooks have been screeching about this for years now.

It's one of the reasons why I refer to cops as nothing more than an occupying army and why government is not legitimate.

It's a gross violation of a whole slew of rights, that happens on a daily basis.

[Dr.3D]

Keep it in the bank.
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HAHAHAHAAHA...

:D

Nope, they will steal your possessions out of a bank too. Seems they are quite imaginative when it comes to robbing people.

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

They are not.

Us patriot, freedom, kooks have been screeching about this for years now.

It's one of the reasons why I refer to cops as nothing more than an occupying army and why government is not legitimate.

It's a gross violation of a whole slew of rights, that happens on a daily basis.

aye

[Austrian Econ Disciple]

I say it is time for revolution. How many acts must we endure? These are by no means new, or select in number. It is a cancer.

[BamaAla]

Freedom isn't free?

Stuff like this really burns my blood; then I have to listen to sheep shout the mantra "we live in a free country." When will the people stop this shit...ever?

[Humanae Libertas]

You 'ought to change "cops seize $28 grand" to "cops STEAL $28 grand". That word is more appropriate giving the situation at hand.

[Travlyr]

Ending the Fed and implementing honest sound money will put a stop to this.

[Anti Federalist]

Freedom isn't free?

Stuff like this really burns my blood; then I have to listen to sheep shout the mantra "we live in a free country." When will the people stop this shit...ever?

Never.

We're on our own here, waiting for "the people" to "wake up" is a fools gamble, I think.

As DHS and IRS and FBI mounts a new nationwide campaign to "Report suspicious activity" and floods media, road signs and Wal Marx with their message, ponder this:


Contrary to popular belief, the Gestapo was not the all-pervasive, omnipotent agency in German society.[17] In Germany proper, many towns and cities had less than 50 official Gestapo personnel. For example, in 1939 Stettin and Frankfurt am Main only had a total of 41 Gestapo men combined.[18] In Düsseldorf, the local Gestapo office of only 281 men were responsible for the entire Lower Rhine region, which comprised 4 million people.[19] "V-men", as undercover Gestapo agents were known, were used to infiltrate Social Democratic and Communist opposition groups, but this was more the exception, not the rule.[20] The Gestapo office in Saarbrücken had 50 full-term informers in 1939.[20] The District Office in Nuremberg, which had the responsibility for all of northern Bavaria employed a total of 80–100 full-term informers in the years 1943–1945.[20] The vast majority of Gestapo informers were not full-term informers working undercover, but were rather ordinary citizens who for whatever reason chose to denounce those they knew to the Gestapo.[21]

According to Canadian historian Robert Gellately's analysis of the local offices established, the Gestapo was, for the most part, made up of bureaucrats and clerical workers who depended upon denunciations by citizens for their information.[22] Gellately argued that because of the widespread willingness of Germans to inform on each other to the Gestapo that Germany between 1933-45 was a prime example of Panopticism.[23] Indeed, the Gestapo, at times, was overwhelmed with denunciations and most of its time was spent sorting out the credible from the less credible denunciations.[24] Many of the local offices were understaffed and overworked, struggling with the paper load caused by so many denunciations.[25] Gellately has also suggested that the Gestapo was "a reactive organization" that "...which was constructed within German society and whose functioning was structurally dependent on the continuing co-operation of German citizens

As the control grid gets tighter, these people, the very ones we are trying to save from tyranny, will no longer resort to calling us kooks and weirdos, but will denounce us to the authorities.

[osan]

Tchachoua was debriefed...

(Debriefed??? What the fuck does debriefed mean in this context??? - AF)

Doublespeak for "interrogated".

MD is a shit hole.

[osan]

Never.

We're on our own here, waiting for "the people" to "wake up" is a fools gamble, I think.

As DHS and IRS and FBI mounts a new nationwide campaign to "Report suspicious activity" and floods media, road signs and Wal Marx with their message, ponder this:



As the control grid gets tighter, these people, the very ones we are trying to save from tyranny, will no longer resort to calling us kooks and weirdos, but will denounce us to the authorities.

Perfectly stated.

[mczerone]

I say it is time for revolution. How many acts must we endure? These are by no means new, or select in number. It is a cancer.

Imagine the sheer number of hyperlinks the Declaration of Independence would have included were it written today. Tyrannical abuses abound, yet we are still the kooks for trying to (at least) limit government lest some entrepreneurial spirit makes herself wealthier than her neighbors.

At the time of the revolution it has been said that 1/3 of the people favored separation, 1/3 were Tories, and 1/3 were largely indifferent. The revolutionaries fought from a minority position and won. I bet, with the proper sales techniques, we could convince at least 1/3 of the population that the current US Federal government has "become[] destructive of those ends" (protecting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness), and thus we have the right "to alter or abolish it." Further:

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

All that is needed is a new theory that better defines the collective notions of "the people", "their future", "them", etc. into individualistic notions that can ensure that the new system is truly ran according to "the consent of the governed".

[Anti Federalist]

At the time of the revolution it has been said that 1/3 of the people favored separation, 1/3 were Tories, and 1/3 were largely indifferent. The revolutionaries fought from a minority position and won. I bet, with the proper sales techniques, we could convince at least 1/3 of the population that the current US Federal government has "become[] destructive of those ends" (protecting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness), and thus we have the right "to alter or abolish it."

This is true.

And right now, we already have that 1/3.

What we lack is the will to act.