Obama AG nominee Loretta Lynch quietly dropped $450,000 civil forfeiture case a week before hearings

[Liberal_in_LA]

When Long Island businessman Jeff Hirsch stepped up to the bank window to make a deposit one morning in May, 2012, the teller shot him a worried look. “You know, your account has been frozen,” she told Hirsch. “I’m not sure you want to put any money in there this morning.”

In fact, the disbelieving Hirsch soon learned, the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York had, without warning, seized the entire working capital — $447,000 — of Bi-County Distributors in Ronkonkoma, N.Y., the business Hirsch co-owns with his two brothers.
For Hirsch, it was one of those petrifying moments that could only elicit an incredulous, “This can’t be true!”

But it was true. Hirsch and his brothers, like thousands of other Americans in the past 10 years, had been targeted by law enforcement authorities on suspicion of a crime he had never heard of. His money had been seized as part of a federally sanctioned wave of “civil asset forfeitures,” with citizens losing homes and automobiles and life savings merely because they were suspected of some crime.

The subject is likely to come up at U.S. Senate hearings this week to review President Obama’s nomination of Loretta Lynch to replace Eric Holder as U.S. Attorney General, staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee say. It was Lynch’s office that inflicted the nightmare of disappearing funds on the Hirsches and refused to release the money even after overwhelming evidence that the brothers were innocent of wrongdoing.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/loretta-lynch-civil-forfeiture-hirsch/

Last week Lynch gave the money back to the brothers

[misterhighwasted]

1. Uh Oh!! And no crime was committed.

Well then, I guess it could happen to anyone. Right?

[GuntherGebelWilliams]

2. I'm sure she was just following the law, her job is to enforce it.

She didn't write the laws and can't selectively decide what to prosecute.

Besides if the brothers had that much loot in an account you can figure they were up to no good somehow.

Make them pay their fair share.

[bigwillq]

4. Hello.

Welcome to DU!

[monmouth4]

5. That is about the dumbest thing I've read on DU in a long time....n/t

[Fumesucker]

9. I think your snarkometer may need to be sent in for recalibration

I definitely read that as being highly snarky..

[Liberal_in_LA]

19. i had to mull that one over before determining it was snark

[Scuba]

13. There's a sarcasm thingy you should know about, as not all DUers have the gene.

[Fred Sanders]

3. Lynch personally gave the money back because of this error by one of her 10,000 lawyers? Wow.

Talk about micromanaging........

[former9thward]

7. The Eastern district of N.Y. has 10,000 lawyers working for it?

Probably about 1% of that. And she would have full knowledge and/or approval of that amount.

[Fred Sanders]

8. If I said a million it would sarcasm, if I said a thousand it would be a guess..I picked in between.

But you do get my point?

In the end she corrected a wrong made very likely by others.

[Jackpine Radical]

6. This woman is really growing on me. Exactly what we need in the AG's office.

What's not to like?

She's an old-line,anti-weed drug warrior.

She's cool with civil seizure of the hoi polloi's property to finance police protection for the rich.

She knows where the political bread is buttered, and knows that the financial gratitude of the few hundred rich friends she made by letting HSBC off the hook with a trivial fine will more than make up for any minimal harm that might have resulted from letting them escape a few tens of billions in tax payments.


Yeah, Goddamit, she's obviously cut from the Right Stuff to fill Holder's big shoes.

[woo me with science]

10. There's a new one every day.

NOTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN STOPPING CORPORATE DEMOCRATS FROM SHOVING ANOTHER CORPORATE PREDATOR IN A DEMOCRAT COSTUME DOWN OUR THROATS AS THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE IN 2016.

If they can do that, they will have assured that this nightmare continues no matter who is elected.

[Fumesucker]

11. I think it's a done deal

Might as well try to sweep the tide back with a broom.

If the nominee is Hillary I'm going to find something else to do for entertainment, this is entirely too frustrating and maddening. I've already left here for months a while back and permanent hiatus will give me time to pursue other interests.

All paying attention to politics has done for me really is drive my blood pressure up and alienate me from a lot of people around me, it would be so much easier just to let it all go and not give a damn.

[sadoldgirl]

15. Just talked to one of my sisters

about this. She is ready to forget about politics,
because of the feeling of utter frustration. I agreed,
but still try to hang in there a bit, even though the
disgust of helplessness gets to me too.

Take care of your blood pressure!

[zeemike]

16. And the chances of them doing it is pretty good.

They will give us Hillary or Jeb to vote for, and there will be many that just give up when asked to chose between two dynasties, the old one or the new one...but never any change.
And the pragmatic will say the new one is better than the old so we have to vote for Hillary.

There are a lot of people that will just say fuck it...and we will have another low turnout election.

[geek tragedy]

12. Holder ended the forfeiture program a few weeks ago.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/01/eric-holder-ends-horrible-civil-asset-forfeiture-program

[dixiegrrrrl]

17. Retroactive? I wonder.

Be curious about how many of the victims who were not charged with anything got their property back.

[Liberal_in_LA]

20. i am glad. but there is still work to b done on the state side of this

[Bluenorthwest]

14. She's another retrogradeauthoritarian from the last century

Entitled, sneering, anti intellectual Bible thumping control freak.

[Doctor_J]

18. Oh man. is this the best the president could do?

How discouraging