Couple win case conjured up by Federal Agency

[halffull]

This couple suffered 3 years of worry and stress due to the greed of local and federal agencies.

It would be a good idea to have a good news section (positive outcomes of people versus the system) the on this forum as we sure have lots of bad news, how about it mods?

Although it was bad news to be a target in the first place, it was good news that they stood up and won and thereby helping other people in this situation in the future


Here's the story

Last January, a federal court in Massachusetts dismissed a civil forfeiture action against the Motel Caswell, a family-run motel in Tewksbury, handing a complete victory to owners Russell and Patricia Caswell.

In one of the most contentious civil forfeiture fights in the nation, Magistrate Judge Judith G. Dein of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts concluded, based on a week-long bench trial in November 2012, that the motel was not subject to forfeiture under federal law and that its owners were wholly innocent of any wrongdoing.

The Institute for Justice and local counsel Schlossberg, LLC, brought the case to trial to expose the injustices of civil forfeiture laws that allow law enforcement agencies to pad their budgets by taking property from innocent owners who have never been convicted or even charged with a crime.

"This is a complete victory for the Caswell family and for the protection of private property rights," said Scott Bullock, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice. "The Caswells will keep their motel, and private property rights are preserved."

The government had sought to take the Motel Caswell from the Caswell family under the theory that the motel allegedly facilitated drug crimes. But the court found that Mr. Caswell "did not know the guests involved in the drug crimes, did not know of their anticipated criminal behavior at the time they registered as guests, and did not know of the drug crimes while they were occurring."

"This outrageous forfeiture action should never have been filed in the first place," said Larry Salzman, an IJ attorney. "What the government did amounted to little more than a grab for what they saw as quick cash under the guise of civil forfeiture."
Caswell said, "I couldn't have fought this fight without the help of the Institute for Justice. It is hard to believe anything like this goes on in our country, but the government goes after people they think can't afford to fight. But with IJ's help, we put up a heck of a fight and have won. The public needs to stand up against these abuses of power."

Learn More: http://ij.org/massachusetts-civil-for...

oJrM44GwiTg

[grannyfranny100]

We have health insurance and life insurance. Now we need insurance against the government to pay for attorneys. A number of government agencies pull such stunts as this especially the IRS where you are guilty until proven innocent.

[Snowflower]

From previous actual experience of winning against the Feds, I can only look upon this couple with sadness as I contemplate their certain future. They will be audited by the IRS every quarter. They will be investigated endlessly for fraud. They will be publicized in some way by the Feds as "under investigation" for fraud or criminal charges, or something else. They might be framed with the "discovery" of heroin in the trunk of their car in a "routine" traffic stop. Their children and grandchildren will be harmed in some way. The possibilities are endless. The Feds don't like anyone to win against them. They just don't like it at all.

This is a direct quote to my husband when he did NOT testify as directed against his partner, but instead told the truth on the stand: "You may have won this time, you Son of a Bitch, but we'll get you for this." It took them another 25 years, but they eventually managed to get him into a Georgia courtroom (where the Feds are God and Yankees are automatically guilty) and got him convicted of the INTENTION to commit fraud. They couldn't even get him on actual fraud, but had to make up a crime to convict him. Then they sentenced him, not based on the actual conviction, but on a made up number based on what he "could have done" over 35 years of being in business. The actual conviction limited jail time to six months but they put him in prison for four years because he "could have defrauded" more people during his business years. I am not kidding and not exaggerating. This is half the reason I KNOW the "justice" system in this country is a farce with the base line intention of providing money for the State and slaves for the corporations that are buying prisons. The other half is my own experience when I learned the difference between intellectual understanding of a reality and emotional understanding of that same reality.

The only important message from "The Hunger Games" trilogy says it all: Figure out WHO the enemy is."

I know who the enemy is, and as a result, I know that normal life for these poor people is over.

[Pam]

Heres another one that will blow your mind......



A Pennsylvania woman has lost her home for little more than the cost of a Starbucks Frappuccino.

The woman, Eileen Battisti, and her husband, Anthony, bought a home in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh, in 1999. The single family home stands on just a little over a third of acre.

According to court documents , five years later, Battisti’s husband died, leaving her with three children, the home and the mortgage. She used the proceeds from her husband’s life insurance to pay off the mortgage but was unable to timely keep up with the other bills, including the taxes due on the property.

The bills kept coming in and Battisti claims that “physical and emotional challenges” made it difficult to make ends meet. Among those challenges was a serious injury that she says left her unable to work for some time. So, she admits, she was occasionally late paying the bills.

In 2008, Battisti missed the deadline for paying her property taxes. Battisti eventually paid the original tax bill ($833.88) plus penalty and late fees. She did not, however, tack on additional interest which had accrued but was not yet included on the tax bill for the late payment. How late was she? Six days. The interest on the late payment? $6.30.

In 2010, Battisti was late again with her county tax payments. She again settled up, paying interest and penalty in full, but only for 2010. She still had an outstanding account balance on her account totaling $234.72: that was the $6.30 due from 2008 plus additional interest and costs. That amount remained unpaid.

By 2011, the amount due from the 2008 tax bill had ballooned to $255.84. Enough was enough, according to county officials, who began the process of putting Battisti’s house up for sale.

Map of Beaver County. Map of Beaver County. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Battisti’s house was eventually sold at sheriff’s sale for nearly $120,000 in order to satisfy the unpaid balance from 2008. After taxes and costs deducted from the sale, Battisti is entitled to the $108,039 of the proceeds. That isn’t what Battisti wants. She doesn’t want the money, she says: she merely wants to keep the house where she has lived for the past 15 years, now worth about $280,000. Apparently, she has the option to do that if she can scramble together nearly a quarter of a million dollars. Battisti claims that the man who bought her house, S.P. Lewis, has offered to sell the house back to her for $260,000.

Battisti sued the county and Lewis after the sale, alleging, among other things that she had no notice of the debt or the sale. Battisti claims that she was never aware that she had an outstanding tax bill from 2008. The county claims, however, that Battisti was notified of the delinquency beginning in 2009. However, a June 3, 2009, “notice of return and claim” was returned to the county as undelivered and the county can’t prove that they provided subsequent notice in 2009.

The county next argued that even if Battisti didn’t know about the balance due in 2009 or in 2010, she certainly knew about it in 2011 when she accepted notice by certified mail and later, was personally served by a sheriff’s deputy. The case, which has winded its way through the Pennsylvania court system, eventually landed in front of Beaver County Common Pleas Judge Gus Kwidis who sided with the county this week.

Joe Askar, Beaver County’s chief solicitor, agrees with the ruling, saying:

The county never wants to see anybody lose their home, but at the same time the tax sale law, the tax real estate law, doesn’t give a whole lot of room for error, either.

Askar estimates that the county takes 600 to 1,000 properties a year to sheriff sale over unpaid taxes. Sheriff’s sales in the county are conducted on a monthly basis. Sale dates and properties are advertised in the Beaver County Times and the Beaver County Legal Journal prior to sale.

Those advertising requirements didn’t help Battisti who claims she was blindsided. She continues to maintain that she was wronged and cannot believe that she could lose her house over a $6.30 tax bill. Through her lawyer, she has indicated that she plans an appeal. For now, Battisti remains in her home.