27 Arrested in First Online Gambling Bust Since Bush Signed Law Banning Internet Wagering

Prosecutors brought charges Wednesday against 27 people — including a Major League Baseball scout — in connection with a billion-dollar-a-year Internet sports gambling ring, the first such case since President Bush signed a ban on Internet gambling last month.

I’m posting this only because I recently had someone tell me that this law didn’t exist, and that no one was made a criminal overnight with the stroke of a pen.

As for the motives for the law itself, ALWAYS follow the money.

Kevin Ryan, a spokesman for the Queens District Attorney, said “we have initiated a $500 million asset forfeiture case,” one of the largest in state history.

Oregon has its faults, but in some significant ways (death with dignity, medical marijuana), those folks sure are ahead of the curve.

Court upholds Oregon law restricting forfeitures

Before the measure passed, police were able to use civil courts to seek forfeiture of money and property believed to have been obtained in criminal activity, such as drug buys, or purchased with the proceeds of criminal activity.

But civil liberties groups objected, saying police could take property even if its owner never was convicted of a crime and without proving their case by the high standard required in criminal trials.

The 2000 law, known as Measure 3, raised the bar, requiring police to get a criminal conviction before they could pursue a forfeiture. It also tightened the rules on what is subject to forfeiture, effectively slashing the amounts police could claim and cutting off a major source of funding for narcotics investigations.

I probably need not mention how silly it is that police think they can, in essence, convict inanimate property of a crime, especially when there isn’t enough evidence to charge the owner with anything. Score one for the little guys. Asset forfeiture has become one of the largest abuses being perpetrated by police in this country, and it’s good to see that the residents of at least one state are telling their law enforcement that they’ve had enough of these unjustifiable police garage sales.

Feds tried to seize gold caps from defendants’ teeth

TACOMA, Wash. — Talk about taking a bite out of crime — government lawyers tried to remove and confiscate the gold-capped teeth known as “grills” or “grillz” from the mouths of two men facing drug charges….

According to documents and lawyers involved in the case in U.S. District Court, Flenard T. Neal Jr. and Donald Jamar Lewis, charged with several drug and weapon violations, were taken on Tuesday from the Federal Detention Center to the U.S. marshal’s office, where they were told the government had a warrant to seize the grills.

Before being put into a vehicle to be taken to a dentist in Seattle, they called their lawyers, who were able to halt the seizure, said Miriam Schwartz, Neal’s public defender. A permanent stay of the seizure order was signed Tuesday by U.S. Magistrate J. Kelley Arnold, court documents show.

Okay, the comparison to Nazi Germany is a smidge overdramatic. But no asset forfeiture should involve doctors, dentists, or any other member of the medical establishment. I mean really - if drug money paid for a pacemaker implant or artificial limb, would they steal that, too? They can be auctioned off, you know.