COUNTIES SHARE IN DRUG OFFENDERS' MONEY

The way Armstrong County District Attorney Scott Andreassi sees it, the
federal and state asset forfeiture programs create a "win-win" situation for
prosecutors.

"In some of the cases, the money we get from drug arrests is being used to
arrest more drug suspects," he said. "These are donations made by the bad
guys."

Asset forfeitures come back to counties from investigations coordinated with
the U.S. Department of Justice, the state Attorney General's Office, a
county task force involving several municipalities, or a combination of
those law enforcement agencies.

Most of the forfeiture money received by Armstrong County's drug task force
is from the state Attorney General's Office.

"(The money is) usually from $2,500 down, generally in the $500 to $600
range," Andreassi said. "It goes directly into investigative funds and it's
money we don't have to get from the taxpayers."

WESTMORELAND COUNTY

Westmoreland County has one of the biggest asset forfeiture balances in the
region. It comes from cases handled by the county's own drug enforcement
detectives, the countywide task force, and state and federal agencies.

According to District Attorney John Peck, fiscal year of July 1997 began
with $246,000 in the program. In the following 12 months the county received
an additional $56,205 from cash forfeitures and from the sale of properties,
and shared about $16,000 with municipalities and the state police involved
in collaborated drug investigations.

"The income for 1996 to 1997 was a little less than $62,000, and we shared
$6,000," Peck said. "The year before that, we had an income of $128,000 and
shared $29,000. We generally start our (fiscal year) balances around
$250,000 and realize about $60,000 a year in forfeiture assets."

The county detectives recently seized a boat and a truck from drug dealers
and at last month's auction sold five vehicles that had been confiscated in
drug arrests.

"We primarily use the money to develop cases in our own investigations,"
Peck said.

WASHINGTON COUNTY

According to Ernest Batista, assistant special agent in charge of the
Pittsburgh District Office of the Drug Enforcement Administration, $33,000
from the Department of Justice Asset Sharing Program was recently turned
over to Washington County's drug task force. Some of it originated with the
county's participation last year in rounding up dealers who were
transporting marijuana. Two municipalities were also involved.

"The deal went down in Monongahela and when they were chasing the vehicle,
the actor who was driving the car wrecked here and got away on foot,"
Fallowfield Township Chief Sam Womcheck said. "We apprehended him and the
vehicle.

That was our part in it." A small part, but the rural township police
department will find good use for their share of that forfeiture money.

"I don't know how much we're going to get, but we'll likely put it toward
updating and computerizing our department," Womcheck said.

It's not necessarily the amount that makes prosecutors happy. It's the
thought behind it that counts.

"If the criminals are carrying money and they are selling drugs, we try to
seize it because we don't want them to have it," Washington County Assistant
District Attorney Gene Vittone said.

SOMERSET COUNTY

Somerset County's drug task force gets less than $15,000 a year in asset
forfeitures, most of it from county level busts.

"Our dealers don't drive Mercedes," District Attorney Jerry Spangler said.

But they are bringing in marijuana, LSD, cocaine, crack cocaine, heroine and
now, possibly opium, though no arrests have yet been made on that illegal
substance. Seized assets in Somerset County have enabled the state police
involved in those cases to purchase laptop computers for drug enforcement
operations.

"Next week we have (an anti-drug) Red Ribbon campaign in schools, and that
was paid for out of forfeiture funds," Spangler said.

Somerset County's Chief Detective Ernest Lohr, head of the drug task force,
likes the fact that the money is available specifically for fighting drugs.

"It's controlled by the district attorney's office," he said. "So when a
police department has to have money, if they need $400 or $500 to make a
drug buy that's not a task force case, it's quickly accessible. It could
take days to get it if we had to go through the county commissioners or the
Pennsylvania State Police, and some of these investigations come down quite
quickly."

INDIANA COUNTY

The Indiana County drug task force gets nearly $15,000 in forfeitures "in a
good year."

"We take in some cash and some vehicles, but there are a lot of forfeitures
we could take but we don't," District Attorney Bob Bell said. "If we get a
car that's 15 years old and has 200,000 miles, we're not interested. It
would be more time and trouble than it's worth. We took our first boat last
week. It wasn't on the water, but it was being used to store drugs that were
going to be distributed. It's a pretty nice boat, 22 feet long with an
inboard motor, and we intend to forfeit it."

Confiscated cash and the sale of better assets enabled the county to
purchase a drug-sniffing black Labrador retriever that will be trained with
a handler and used throughout the county.

"It's nice to use the bad guys' money to get more bad guys off the streets,"
Bell said.

CAMBRIA COUNTY

Investigators in Cambria County seize between $5,000 and $10,000 annually.
The bulk of it goes to the drug task force for equipment, man hours or to
set up drug purchases to make arrests.

"We also use those funds for school educational programs, for (police)
training or speakers at law enforcement seminars," said Chief County
Detective Rod Miller.

FAYETTE COUNTY

Fayette County detectives, without a task force for more than two years,
coordinate their drug investigations with the state police.

"We're looking to re-form the task force again, probably after the first of
the year," Chief Bernie Gorman said.

The small forfeitures given back to the county through the Attorney
General's Office have been used primarily for elementary school programs.

"If we can stop the little ones (from using drugs) before they get big,"
Gorman said, "maybe we can eliminate the problem."

Checked-by: Don Beck