SEIZED CASH AND PROPERTY HELP WAR ON CRIME

Police Use Bounty Mostly For Equipment

The money was hidden under the seat.

There was more than $155,000 in all, likely the tainted proceeds of
illicit drug sales.

A year after the traffic stop on Interstate 95, the cash is to be
released to the Martin County Sheriff's Office along with a 1999
Chevy Tahoe.

Federal law enforcement agencies confiscate hundreds of millions of
dollars in cash, vehicles, airplanes and boats used in crimes each
year, U.S. Department of Justice statistics show.

Local police and sheriff's departments account for much more.

According to law, much of that money will be used to fight the very
crime from which it came by helping outfit law enforcement with the
latest in crime-fighting technology and funding anti-drug and crime
prevention programs.

This month, Martin County Sheriff Robert Crowder announced plans to
use more than $100,000 in forfeited money to buy a high-tech robot
that can defuse bombs, sniff out dangerous chemicals and rescue
accident victims with less danger to emergency workers.

But the confiscated funds have provided much more than new equipment
for the sheriff's office.

"What it means for us is to be able to take resources away from
people who are violating the laws and turn those resources into new
equipment and programs at no expense to the local taxpayers to help
us do a better job enforcing the law," Crowder said.

From October 1995 to January 2002, the sheriff's office deposited
into a special fund $1,476,966.56 in confiscated drug money and cash
from the sale of seized property, sheriff's records state.

Of that money, the agency has spent $1,452,501.10 on equipment from
bulletproof vests to drug-sniffing dogs, and from laptop computers to
a new fingerprinting computer system billed as a major advance in
solving crimes.

More than $239,000 was spent on anti-crime programs, such as
neighborhood watches, records show.

There was $24,456.46 in the account in January, before the likely
addition of the $155,000 seized on I-95.

The shopping list

The sheriff's office pressed its Automated Finger Print
Identification System into operation in October.

The powerful computer compares prints found at crime scenes with a
state database of more than 3.1 million people. Many are known
criminals, and others such as police and military personnel have
their prints put on file when they apply for their jobs.

So far, detectives said they have solved several burglaries using the computer.

A 1999 home burglary in Golden Gate was recently solved after the
computer and detectives matched a partial print found on a kitchen
window to a man who otherwise would never have been a suspect.

"Those cases wouldn't have been solved if we hadn't purchased this
equipment," forensic detective Sgt. Sanford Shirk said.

He and other detectives are in the process of going through old, cold
and ongoing cases to see what the $136,500 computer might turn up.

"As a result, you may have thought you got away with it and now, we
might be looking for you," he said.

Seized money can also be spent to defray the cost of lengthy and
complex investigations.

Another purchase using the fund was the much-touted addition of
portable heart defibrillators.

Sheriff's shift supervisors and sergeants who can get to most places
in the county quickly have the devices in their patrol cars. There is
a defibrillator in the jail and the main sheriff's compound.

All were bought using $59,301 from the forfeited assets fund.

"It just depends on what the need is at the time, a need that arises
and it's something that qualifies for this rather than impacting the
budget," Crowder said.

Other agencies across the Treasure Coast have used confiscated funds
in the same way.

Stuart police officials said they spend about $3,000 of the money
each year on the D.A.R.E. program for skating parties, graduations
and T-shirts.

They also have bought advanced surveillance equipment, used the money
for undercover drug buys and to pay confidential informants.

St. Lucie County and Port St. Lucie law enforcement officials said
they have done much of the same.

At the last accounting in September, the St. Lucie County Sheriff's
Office had about $586,000 in its fund. Part of that money was used to
buy a reverse 911 system to alert residents to emergency situations,
Chief Deputy Garry Wilson said.

Going into 2001, the Port St. Lucie Police Department had about
$110,500 in its fund, police said.

Since then, the department has used the money for equipment and to
pay a $25,000 reward for information that led to the capture of
double-murder suspect Mario Bentancourt in Mexico, police spokesman
Chuck Johnson said.

Although authorities said almost all of the purchases have served
officers and the community well, some expenditures didn't provide the
best return.

In Martin County, the national AmeriCorps program billed as a
domestic Peace Corps was intended to help residents become more self
reliant in troubled areas of the county.

The sheriff's office put up $50,000 from the fund to get the program
going locally.

"It was money that didn't have a long-term bang," he said.

The local program has been abandoned by the sheriff's office.

Although state statute permits spending the confiscated funds on such
programs, there are strict limits and rules for its use.

State law mandates that 15 percent of money from agencies that
acquire $15,000 or more a year must be spent or donated to support
drug treatment, education and prevention, along with crime prevention
and school resource programs.

According to sheriff's records, $239,616.95 has been spent in six
years on the school resource officer program, D.A.R.E. and other
crime prevention initiatives to meet that requirement.

Those programs also included money for the Boy Scouts of America, the
sheriff's athletic league and support for neighborhood crime watch
programs, the sheriff said.

Statutes also dictate the money cannot be used to supplement the
normal operating budget or existing programs of the agency.

That means the money could not be used to pay for an extra deputy or
fully fund the cash-strapped juvenile boot camp, which opened in
1994, Crowder said.

Also by law, expenditures must be approved by Martin County
commissioners, who are charged with making sure spending complies
with the law. Commissioners, however, cannot dictate how the money is
spent, Crowder said.

Money's source

Sheriff's Deputy James Warren stopped the 1999 Chevy a mile north of
the Stuart exit on Feb. 1, 2001, a sheriff's report states. He stated
he "was unable to determine the issue date of the 30-day temporary
North Carolina tag."

In his report, Warren said he began writing a warning citation for
the "obscured" license tag when the driver told him they were
traveling from North Carolina to West Palm Beach to visit his sister.

But the passenger said they were going to Fort Lauderdale to visit his cousin.

In part because of the conflicting stories, the deputy called in a
drug sniffing dog that "immediately" indicated narcotics were
present. The men were placed in a patrol car while deputies searched
the truck.

Deputies found a .357 caliber handgun, a suitcase and bags full of
money, some in $1,000 stacks commonly used by drug dealers.

The two men were secretly taped talking in the back of the patrol
car, court records state.

"What are you going to say about the money?" one reportedly said.
"You know the money smell like weed."

With suspicions the men had just made a drug delivery and gotten
paid, the vehicle was towed to the sheriff's office for forfeiture
proceedings under the Florida Contraband Forfeiture Act.

The men were later released without being arrested or charged, but
the money and vehicle were confiscated.

It was a common seizure, said sheriff's officials and Assistant State
Attorney Lev Evans, who handled the case and many others.

"Those guys are typical of big seizure cases," he said. "They just
wanted to get out of Dodge."

What also was common in the case was the men in the truck did not
contest the seizure, court records state.

In January, Circuit Judge Ben Bryan signed an order releasing part of
the forfeited money to the sheriff's office. He signed another March
4 for the rest.

"Some of the biggest forfeitures ... though are not contested," Evans
said. "My speculation is that (criminals) treat it as the cost of
doing business."

Civil liberties issue

Civil liberties advocates have decried the forfeiture tactics.

"In a lot of ways, it's very effective in terms of shutting down
certain criminal operations," said Larry Spalding, the American Civil
Liberties Union's legislative counsel in Tallahassee.

"The real problem that we have is the way the law has operated. It
seems to turn the rights of an individual upside down. The main
problem is they come in and the government takes the property and
then the burden is on the individual to prove there is an improper
taking."

In many cases, an arrest is made along with the seizure, but the
criminal charges are later dropped. The money, however, is forfeited
and will stay that way because the civil forfeiture proceeding is
independent of the criminal proceeding, the local prosecutor said.

That is exactly what troubles the ACLU.

Although Spalding wasn't familiar with the local cases, he said,
"It's too easy for the government to seize it. They only have to
prove there is a criminal enterprise in response to your opposition."

Attempts to strengthen citizens' rights in such cases have been the
subject of state and congressional attention.

In 2000, Congress enacted the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act, "To
provide a more just and uniform procedure for federal civil
forfeitures."

Law enforcement officials say they take every precaution to ensure
money is handled properly.

"There's a lot of little elements we look at," said Sheriff's Maj.
William Reichert.

Those factors include how the money is packaged, how nervous the
suspects react to questions, the use of drug dogs and other tactics.

"You just don't stop them because it's a nice car," he said. "I'm not
a pirate. We're not out plundering and looting."

Florida law prohibits law enforcement agencies from anticipating
future forfeitures or proceeds when adopting budgets.

"We don't want to be making drug cases because of this fund," Crowder
said. "We want to be making drug cases because the drugs are there,
the dealers are there, and that's what we're supposed to do."