Their loss is our gain as police claim the tools of the criminal trade

By Sam Skolnik

Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2006 | 7:19 a.m.

In the last 12 months, Metro Police seized $1,040 from Moran Matias after allegedly finding bags of methamphetamine and powder and rock cocaine in his pickup truck.

They took $1,402 off of Derrick Sumuel after his arrest because he allegedly had been living off the earnings of a 17-year-old prostitute.

And they seized a 2003 Toyota Corolla from David Thiriot, an Iraq war vet who prosecutors say assaulted and attempted to kill a prostitute after a dispute over money.

These seizures were all part of Metro's use of Nevada's forfeiture laws. Over the last two decades, police in Las Vegas - and local and federal law enforcers throughout the state - have increasingly been taking advantage of their right to seize and keep cash, cars and even homes of alleged criminals.

Law enforcers say they use the forfeiture laws not to bolster their coffers but to punish criminals - and more importantly, to take away the tools criminals use, such as cash, cars and guns, to commit their crimes.

"We do not want to be seizing for the benefit or gain of the department," says Karen Keller, Metro's executive director of finance. "The motivation is not to make money. It's to stop criminals from using the money or property to commit future crimes."

Millions of dollars in Nevada have been transferred from suspects into the bank accounts of local police departments, the U.S. Treasury and, since 2001, school districts.

In the last five fiscal years, ending June 30, Metro received through forfeitures more than $3.68 million in cash and other property, department records show. Ninety-two percent of those funds came from drug-related arrests .

The actions filed against the property of Matias, Sumuel and Thiriot were among 96 forfeiture cases brought by the Clark County district attorney's office on behalf of Metro in 2006.

Police actually sue the property in forfeiture cases. The Matias case, for example, is called "Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department v . U.S. Currency $1,040.00."

In these 2006 cases, about a third of which are unresolved, police seized and are seeking $475,613 in cash; 17 vehicles , including pickup trucks, sports cars and sport utility vehicles, and several handguns.

The person whose property was taken can challenge the forfeiture in court, though few do, records show. Only a half-dozen of the 2006 cases have been contested. And in all but one contested case decided so far, police won the right to keep the property.

One year after he was arrested in February 2005, Clark County prosecutors claimed in court papers that alleged serial armed robber Christopher Carter had confessed to using his black 1997 Mazda Miata to rob a Commerce Bank branch on South Decatur Boulevard. They sued to seize the car and the Smith & Wesson 9 mm handgun Carter allegedly used .

From his jail cell at the Clark County Detention Center, Carter filed an opposition motion, claiming that the Miata had its license plates covered, and therefore could not be positively identified in any of the robberies for which he was accused.

On April 18, Chief Deputy District Attorney Randall Weed rescinded the county's forfeiture claim. No reason was given.

Without tracking the records of each law enforcement agency in the state, there is no way to gauge exactly how much money is forfeited under state and federal laws in Nevada each year. Unlike other states, no agency in Nevada collects such data, officials from the state treasurer and attorney general's offices say.

Controversies regularly have arisen over the years regarding forfeiture abuses nationwide. Prosecutors have seized cash and property without charging the suspect with a crime - and then made it next to impossible for the suspect to get his property back.

And critics contend that under forfeiture laws, police have great incentive to pad their budgets by taking - fairly or not - as much of a suspect's property as possible.

Defense lawyers in Las Vegas share the concerns. But by and large, they say, the Clark County district attorney's office and Metro have been fair-minded and do not abuse the system.

"They're very careful," longtime defense lawyer John Momot says.

Las Vegas defense attorney Donald Green largely agrees: "Police are doing what they believe to be the best job, what they believe to be right."

Several local attorneys credited Weed, who files the forfeiture cases on behalf of Metro, for applying what they say is a fair approach.

But Green and others add that police and prosecutors can occasionally be overzealous - and that the law itself presents blatantly unfair challenges for poor suspects trying to contest a forfeiture. Criminal suspects, who are entitled to a free public defender, have to pay for civil attorneys to represent them in forfeiture cases.

"A lot of people, especially poor persons of color, simply don't have the extra funds to fight (forfeitures)," says Green, who represents Matias.

In many cases, Green says, less-experienced defense attorneys advise their clients not to fight relatively small forfeitures, fearing it could damage their criminal case.

In the past, local prosecutors have used the forfeiture laws as leverage to gain a stiffer criminal sentence, some attorneys claim. The flip side has also been true, they claim, noting cases in which they say a suspect was arrested chiefly as a way to get to large amounts of his money.

Weed declined comment, but Assistant District Attorney Christopher Lalli says his office does not use the forfeiture laws as leverage: "We try to be very reasonable, but there are situations where people really should not be allowed to keep the proceeds from their crimes."

Nevada's forfeiture law came under attack last year when Boulder City officials attempted to seize the $400,000 home of a woman convicted of misdemeanor drug possession. The house is forfeitable, officials claim, because the woman, Cynthia Warren, cultivated marijuana there and sold it out of her home.

Dave Olsen, Boulder City's city attorney, could not be reached, but has said previously that the forfeiture suit sent a message that drug dealing in the community won't be tolerated.

Although the criminal matter has long since been resolved, the forfeiture case continues, says Warren's attorney, Las Vegas lawyer John Lusk, who has received help from the American Civil Liberties Union in the case.

Defense attorney David Chesnoff says that over the last few years, it has been easier to deal with local officials than federal officials in forfeiture cases. The feds "take things first and ask questions later," he says.

Daniel Bogden, U.S. attorney for Nevada, says in a statement that his prosecutors strictly follow the laws when pursuing forfeiture actions: "The primary mission of the Department of Justice Asset Forfeiture Program is to employ asset forfeiture powers in a manner that enhances public safety and security."

From 2001-2005, the total amount collected from civil and criminal forfeiture cases filed by Nevada-based federal prosecutors came to $29.6 million, according to Natalie Collins, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Las Vegas.

Barbara Plunkett, asset forfeiture investigator with the FBI's Las Vegas field office, says her agency's policy is to look for assets to be forfeited in "every single case."

"The goal is to take those assets that are used illegally, to prevent the bad guy from using the assets for other criminal activities," she says.

In one of the biggest recent forfeitures, FBI officials point to the roughly $4 million in cash they reaped from convicted strip club owner Michael Galardi as part of a plea deal he made with federal authorities.

"That was a very significant case," Plunkett says, "not just in terms of its impact on public corruption, but the size of the forfeiture."

Federal forfeiture collections from agencies such as the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Marshal Service are forwarded to the U.S. Treasury.

In the state system, a big chunk of forfeited funds goes to the agency that made the seizure. And under a 2001 Nevada law, funds also are set aside for school districts.

When seizures are made by a joint federal-local task force, any forfeitures are split accordingly.

Keller says that the funds spent from Metro's forfeiture account have gone toward necessary items for the department, such as new bullet-proof vests for the SWAT team and tactical weapons, which are not covered by Metro's main budget.

Most cars local police seize are sold at auction, but some, Keller notes, have great value to undercover narcotics officers.

Seventy percent of the amount of money in excess of $100,000 that remains in a law enforcement agency's forfeiture bank accounts at the end of each fiscal year must be passed on to the school district in that county, to be used specifically to purchase books and computer hardware and software for the students.

According to Bill Sampson, budget director for the Clark County School District, Metro officials have given $730,000 to the district since the 2001 law was passed.