Report: Cops Keeping Drug Money

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Police across the country sidestep state laws to
ensure that millions of dollars seized in drug raids and traffic stops
remain in police hands, The Kansas City Star reports.

In a yearlong investigation, The Star examined more than two dozen
states to determine how law enforcement officers handled forfeited
drug money and property. The newspaper found that in each state
examined, police used federal law enforcement to circumvent their own
state laws and keep most of the money for themselves.

Law enforcement officials say the practice is not illegal and that
police would be handcuffed in fighting crime without that money.

The Star reported in the first of a two-part series Sunday that police
retain most of the money by calling a federal agency during a drug
seizure instead of going to state court. An agency such as the Drug
Enforcement Administration accepts the seizure, making it a federal
case. The DEA keeps a cut of the money and returns the rest to police.
As a result, state courts are bypassed.

Consequently, millions of dollars that lawmakers have designated for
education, drug treatment programs and other purposes instead stay
with police, The Star reported.

For example, a North Carolina State Highway Patrol trooper stopped a
driver for tailgating. A police dog signaled drugs were in the car,
where troopers found $105,700 and 2 grams of marijuana. The driver
denied owning either the drugs or the money. The highway patrol gave
it to the Drug Enforcement Agency, which returned more than $80,000 to
the state patrol, even though North Carolina law generally requires
sending seized money to education.

Federal officials say police have the proper motives for using federal
law.

"I don't think police agencies are in the business of profiting," said
Jerry McDowell, director of the Justice Department's asset forfeiture
and money laundering division.

Beyond the money diverted from public funds, critics also are troubled
by the weakening of a basic civil liberty - the Bill of Rights
protection against improper search and seizure.

Owners who want to recover seized property usually face a much tougher
road in federal court than they would under their own state laws.

The federal hand-offs also create an opportunity for police to profit
from their own actions, critics say.

"If you think that by conducting an illegal search and seizing people
on the highway you can increase the number of times where you can take
assets, it is going to become a big motivating force," said Ira
Glasser, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Forfeitures have come to mean a lot of money for police.

The Justice Department says that from October 1996 through March 1999
it accepted $208,454,000 in seizures from state and local police -
much of which was returned to those agencies.

Police say they need the money if they are to continue the war on
drugs. If they lose forfeiture money, they say, local governments are
unlikely to replace it.