Jessica Mooney of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, filed a lawsuit against the Fort Lauderdale Police Department (FLPD) this week after officers allegedly brutally beat and sent her to the hospital with head trauma following a wrongful arrest.
Mooney, 26, believes the officers targeted her for the testimony she provided in a police brutality case from 2015. The lawsuit includes pictures of her gruesome injuries—her left eye swollen and her left arm covered in bruises.
West Virginians are stepping up their game in the fight against civil asset forfeiture within their state, continuing a seemingly nationwide trend of citizens and public interest groups fighting the controversial laws.
Citizens of West Virginia have been among the worst victims of civil asset forfeiture in the United States, receiving one of the lowest grades in the nation (D-) for its forfeiture laws and practices according to the Institute for Justice. Continue reading
What would have been a simple traffic stop in Wyoming turned into a nightmare as a Wisconsin man lost his entire life savings to asset forfeiture.
The man, Phil Parhamovich, was pulled over earlier in March of this year for a lane deviation and failure to use his seatbelt. After the stop was over, Parhamovich was down nearly $92,000. Many months later, he has won the money back in court.
The city of Denver has recently come under fire from local activists for its civil asset forfeiture laws after an investigation published by Denver’s Fox News affiliate.
The investigation looked at the city’s practices of property confiscation under a statute called the Public Nuisance Abatement Ordinance, which allows the city of Denver to confiscate property from individuals accused of crimes for which they might later be judged innocent. Although the ordinance is not new by any means, it has recently come into contention after the Denver attorney’s office made $2.4 million in car seizures last year.
Civil asset forfeiture laws were originally intended as a way to fight drug trafficking. The laws originated and grew in the 1970s and 1980s as law enforcement agencies lacked a way to diminish the operations of resilient drug trafficking operations.
But the laws have also created for law enforcement agencies a lucrative stream of revenue, and the numbers show just how common civil forfeiture has become in the United States.
Criminal Defense and Civil Forfeiture Blog