Nick Sibilla
Under the legal doctrine of civil forfeiture, police can seize property
tangentially linked to a crime, even if the property owner herself is innocent.
As Isaiah Thompson reports in the Philadelphia City Paper, this is precisely
what happened to Sandra Leino and her family. “Long before the forfeiture action against her house would be completed, and without a judge or jury ever seeing her face, Leino would be forced from her house and made homeless along with her three children. She would lose her most precious possessions, and ultimately be deprived of her family’s most valuable asset — all without Leino ever being accused of any crime.”....
As for Sam, in 2012, he went to trial and was “found
guilty of one count of possession with intent to distribute, and sentenced to
three to six years.
But the story doesn’t end there. Isaiah Thompson elaborates: “Four of the police officers who surveilled and arrested Sam Leino are among a
group of six narcotics officers whose credibility has been effectively
dismissed by the DA’s Office itself after allegations were made in open court
that they were part of a drug-dealing ring within the Philadelphia Police
Department…How many times the DA’s forfeiture unit has seized property based on
the testimony of these officers is not presently clear.”…… No wonder a
Pennsylvania judge has lambasted civil forfeiture as “little more than
state-sanctioned theft.”
.....To Read More....
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