Feds to Return Money
There is justice only if your story becomes a national story that the Washington Post reports on.
If your a victim of Civil Asset Forfeiture who loses "only" a few grand, I doubt the government would return your money.
Another lesson to be had: Never trust the government:
They did not return his 22,000 in legal fees though.
Quote:Quote:
"There is no crime in this country for doing business in cash," he said. "But the government treated Lyndon worse than a criminal, by taking his property and forcing him to prove his own innocence to get that property back."
According to Johnson, despite an IRS pledge in November to curb forfeitures that weren't connected to criminal activity, the Department of Justice filed a claim in December saying McLellan had violated the structuring law. The money was held in what is called a "customs suspension account" under the Treasury Department while his case was in limbo.
McLellan had been struggling for months to recover the $107,000, while keeping his business – a store, restaurant and gas station operation – afloat.
In that time, the government never pressed any criminal charges against McLellan. Meanwhile, the DOJ changed its own policy to rein in its restructuring prosecutions in March. But that didn't necessarily mean that McLellan could get his savings back retroactively.
There is justice only if your story becomes a national story that the Washington Post reports on.
If your a victim of Civil Asset Forfeiture who loses "only" a few grand, I doubt the government would return your money.
Another lesson to be had: Never trust the government:
Quote:Quote:
Two months ago, the government offered McLellan 50 percent of his money back and warned him against chasing publicity, even going so far as to suggest it would rile people inside the IRS and could hurt his chances of seeing his cash again, his attorneys said.
“Today the the DOJ is giving him 100 percent,” said Institute for Justice spokesman J. Justin Wilson. “We got him an enormous amount of publicity – and it did work.”
They did not return his 22,000 in legal fees though.
