Forfeiture is a controversial tool used heavily in recent decades by federal, state and local law enforcement agencies nationwide. From 2000 to 2019, forfeitures generated $46 billion for the federal government, an Institute for Justice report found.
When FBI agents asked for permission to rip hundreds of safe deposit boxes from the walls of a Beverly Hills business and haul them away, U.S. Magistrate Steve Kim set some strict limits on the raid.
“This warrant does not authorize a criminal search or seizure of the contents of the safety deposit boxes,” Kim’s March 17 seizure warrant declared.Yet the FBI is now trying to confiscate $86 million in cash and millions of dollars more in jewelry and other valuables that agents found in 369 of the boxes.
If the FBI wanted to search the boxes, the lawyers say, it first needed to meet the standard for a court-issued warrant: Probable cause that evidence of specific crimes would be found. A video screen capture taken from U.S. District Court documents shows agents during the raid of U.S. Private Vaults in Beverly Hills
Federal agents spent five days in late March searching the U.S. Private Vaults store where customers stored valuables in roughly 800 safe deposit boxes. A magistrate authorized the FBI’s seizure of the store’s “business equipment” for a drugs and money laundering investigation, but barred searches of the boxes’ contents.The FBI has returned the contents of about 75 boxes and plans to give back the items found in at least 175 more, because there was no evidence of criminality, Mrozek said.
He obtained the money in two legal settlements, one for a spinal injury in a car accident and another for chronic housing code violations in his apartment building, Ruiz said.The FBI seized it, rejected his requests to return it and is now moving to confiscate it without explanation.
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