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Why the Department of Justice is spending billions to legally steal your money
The DOJ approved billions in new spending on forfeiture investigations. The nonprofit law firm Institute for Justice worries it could be bad news for average Americans.
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Jurors awarded an Alabama couple $1 million after deputies took thousands of dollars from them in a warrantless raid that left them broke and living in a shed.
A deputy from the Randolph County Sheriff’s Office in January 2018 showed up at Gregory and Teresa Almond’s home in Woodland, Alabama, to serve Greg with civil papers, Reason Magazine reported. The deputy left, but reported smelling marijuana.
Hours later, a drug task force broke down their door, threw a flash grenade that detonated at Greg’s feet and started ransacking the couple’s home.
Alabama police raided Greg and Teresa Almond’s home in 2018 without a warrant, seizing a small amount of marijuana as well as thousands of dollars in cash and other valuables. Six years later, a jury awarded the couple $1 million in damages. (iStock)
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“I’m confused, I feel violated, I’m thinking the people who are supposed to serve and protect you basically just threw a bomb in my lap,” Greg said in a 2019 Reason article.
Police found one marijuana plant, part of a joint, a glass pipe and a few leaves. They also seized about $8,000 in cash, a single Lunesta pill, Greg’s gun collection and other valuables, according to media reports.
The Almonds’ son told authorities the marijuana was his, but his parents were charged with second degree possession of marijuana and felony possession of a controlled substance because the Lunesta pill was outside of Greg’s prescription bottle, the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice reported.
The charges were later dropped, but without the seized money, the Almonds couldn’t pay their mortgage and lost their home, according to case records. They moved into a shed on a family member’s property.
Police in Alabama collected around $2.2 million through civil asset forfeiture in 2015, according to a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Alabama Appleseed Center. No charges were filed in a quarter of the seizures. (iStock)
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Police seized the couple’s money and belongings through a process known as civil asset forfeiture. It’s meant to punish criminal activity by depriving criminals of property that is used in or acquired through illegal activities.
But critics have called it “legal theft,” arguing police and prosecutors often abuse the practice, taking innocent American’s money to fill their own coffers.
The Almonds filed a federal lawsuit, alleging the police violated their Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure.
In January, a jury awarded the Almonds $1 million in punitive and compensatory damages.
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No one involved in the raid had a written search warrant. One deputy testified that he spoke with a judge on the phone and believed she had granted him a telephonic search warrant, but the judge “emphatically denied … having ever issued” such a warrant, according to an Alabama appeals court (emphasis theirs).
“It’s made me distrust law enforcement on every level,” Greg previously told Reason. “Going down the road I can see a police or state trooper, not that I’m doing anything wrong, and it’s kind of like my adrenaline goes up. My heart just pounds seeing them.”
The Randolph County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately return a request for comment.
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Alabama law enforcement collected about $2.2 million through civil asset forfeiture in 2015, according to a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Alabama Appleseed Center. A quarter of those seizures did not involve any criminal charges, the report found.
In 2019, the Alabama legislature passed a bill requiring law enforcement and district attorneys to report all seized property, as well as how much of their budget forfeiture proceeds account for.
Hannah Ray Lambert is an associate producer/writer with Fox News Digital Originals.