One question re this remains in my mind. How many will read it?
The ones who realize that all seizure and forfeiture laws name the same five entities which are to be seized:
- Real property
- Vehicles
- Monetary instruments including bank accounts and investments
- Drugs
- Firearms
The first I heard of F.E.A.R. they had a meeting in Orange County, CA. There was a guy there named Danny Oaxaca (Wa HA-ca). He had invested in rental properties when he got out of high school. He owned eight apartment buildings, had his own concrete business building multi level parking structures. He was a real estate broker as well.
He was approached by a guy who wanted to buy one of the apartment houses. He sold the place to the guy and also brokered the deal. Little did he know that the man in question was under investigation for drug trafficking.
At 2AM one night, the police kicked in his door, rousted his wife and children and himself, sat them in the living room in their night clothes handcuffed and proceeded to ransack the house. No one would answer any questions as to why they had broken into the house.
After three hours, he and his wife were taken to jail and his daughter to protective services. Two days later, they were released and Danny thought the nightmare was at an end. Not so.
The police came to his business and seized it and all of his vehicles. They seized all of his records and hauled them away. They seized the eight apartment buildings and gave the tenants a three day notice to quit. They seized his personal and business banking accounts. They seized his daughter's savings account with $113.00 she earned babysitting.
The nightmare had just begun, however.
At that time the law stated that one must place a 10% bond against their own seized property to get a hearing. Danny didn't have that money.
The police demanded he prove where he got his money and Danny told them that he needed to show them his records. The police wouldn't release his records as they had been seized. Without them, he couldn't prove where he got his money part of which was an advanced payment for beginning a project from the Los Angeles Redevelopment District. That money was seized also.
After several months, Danny finally made a deal to get the apartment buildings released. They would keep four of them and Danny would get the other four released to him. The buildings had not been occupied and had been broken into and stripped. Nothing had been paid on the outstanding mortgages on the buildings. The banks which held the notes on the buildings immediately foreclosed Danny's four buildings. The banks which held notes against the other four simply lost out. The last I heard, they were going to sue Danny for the loss.
Danny's business assets were never returned. His trucks and equipment were simply gone forever. His attempts at restarting his business were in vain because no one with whom he had dealt prior to the arrest would deal with him. They told him that the police had told them that he was a drug dealer and they were afraid to associate with him further.
The last I heard from Danny, he was fighting to retain his home which, while listed as a forfeited asset, had not yet been formally seized.
Neither Danny or any member of his family was ever charged with a crime. They never went to trial. They were never convicted. They never went to jail. His property was charged with a crime and seized.
The man who bought the first apartment house was also never charged.
It was at this time that the big flap about the ducks in the canals in Venice, CA was going on. The city wanted to destroy the ducks because they had a disease. The city did not want the ducks to mingle with other migratory waterfowl and cause an epidemic. The people who wanted to protect the ducks from destruction took the city to court. I forget the outcome.
Danny told us in that meeting "I wish I was a f---in' duck. At least the ducks got a day in court."
