A North Carolina teenager was hoping to get her life back on track after a state judge ordered a man who sexually abused her to pay her $69,000. Instead, she got a nasty surprise.
The local police department had already seized the cash through civil asset forfeiture, and it was already gone. Despite a judge’s order, she will get nothing.
The case is a stunning example of the misplaced priorities and perverse incentives that asset forfeiture creates for police—and of how the federal government allows state and local police to evade reforms to stop forfeiture abuse.
Fun fact, civil forfeiture started in maritime law when ships were seized carrying illegal items and the perpetrators were foreign nationals that were never in the country, so the only way to pursue an indictment was to seize the ship and charge the ship itself with the crime.
Boy howdy are cops abusing maritime law then.
Sovcit moment right there