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US Marshals Jump Into 'Cyber Monday' Mania (networkworld.com)
coondoggie writes: "Cyber Monday is generally thought to be the start of the online holiday shopping season. We would like to encourage shoppers who are already online in search of bargains to consider stopping by our auction website to bid on forfeited assets," said Jason Wojdylo, Chief Inspector of the U.S. Marshals Service Asset Forfeiture Division in a statement. These online auctions are designed to generate proceeds from ill-gotten gains to give back to victims, he stated. One auction includes a wine collection of approximately 2,800 bottles seized from once prominent wine dealer Rudy Kurniawan, who is serving a 10-year federal prison sentence following his conviction of selling millions of dollars of counterfeit wine.
Are all the things cops take with civil forfeiture without ever having to prove a crime occurred up for sale too? Or does all that just disappear into the cops' pockets since it's not like there's a paper trail at the courthouse to keep track of it all.
wine collection of approximately 2,800 bottles seized from once prominent wine dealer Rudy Kurniawan, who is serving a 10-year federal prison sentence following his conviction of selling millions of dollars of counterfeit wine.
Can I pay for it with bitcoin - that would seem appropriate.
Check out the statues:
http://www.usmarshals.gov/asse...
How crazy does one have to be? I'd love to hear her story behind that. Maybe she'll write a book.
Assets seized under asset forfeiture generally don't go "back to victims", they mostly go back to police departments. It is a corrupt system that is urgently in need of reform.
http://www.forfeiturereform.co...
https://www.aclu.org/issues/cr...
Police should never benefit from asset forfeiture because it creates a perverse set of incentives; either it should go into the state or federal general fund, or proceeds should go to a pool of charities. The burden of proof for asset forfeiture should be on the government, and the standard should be "beyond a reasonable doubt", just like any other criminal conviction.
This mafia the police has become is disgusting.
Some guy is in jail for 10 years for selling counterfeit wine.
The cops are now selling his counterfeit wine.
If a shop buys these bottles and re-sells them, isn't that still illegally selling counterfeit products?
If you import a counterfeit product and it's stopped at the border, it either gets destroyed or you have to pay to ship it back.
Another auction, which closes on Dec. 1, includes assets seized from Rita Crundwell, the former comptroller of Dixon, Illinois, who in 2012 was convicted of stealing more than $53.7 million over two decades from the city where she was employed. She is serving a nearly 20-year federal prison sentence. More than 390 lots are being auctioned, to include 150 belt buckles, an number of horse-shaped plaques and trophies.
Dixon is a city of 15,733 souls, per Wikipedia, as of the 2000 census.
How in the bloody hell did that much money disappear unnoticed for 20 years?
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Cops Now Steal More from Citizens than do Actual Criminals.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
That's included too, as far as I know. I've seen lots of nice stuff - at great prices. I will not buy them. I will not contribute to this, I find it abhorrent. You go to prison as punishment, not to be punished. If they can prove they are ill-gotten gains then the funds should go towards the reparation or rehabilitation but that aspect seems to be lacking. "Oh, no receipt? Well, we'll just be taking this." There's no real due process there and, as such, it's deplorable.
I can buy lots of this stuff - some of it is nice. I don't. I won't. *sighs* Someone else will but it does make me feel good to not contribute.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
It looks like these items (from following a few links posted in the thread) are not - in fact, taken as civil forfeiture or as ill gotten gains but are from judgments handed down with due process. Hmm... I don't know if it's possible to be sure but it looks like there is some information attached. Heh. Maybe I can buy some stuff and not feel like I'm contributing to the process.
(I felt obligated to make this clear, my first post was under the impression that that's what it was - given the summary and I sure as hell didn't read the article or do one iota of research.)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I don't see where any of the items on the auction site actually link to their history. The only links like that are the couple of links that were in the news story.
You're going to have everything from the actual proceeds of crimes people were actually convicted of, to things closely related to such crimes, to stuff taken with criminal convictions, but under punitive statutes that are designed to confiscate basically all of somebody's property (and effectively impose unconstitutional excessive fines under a different name), to stuff taken under civil standards of evidence and procedure that don't remotely approach "due process".
How are you going to tell the difference?
The linked PDFs to items tell you enough information to Google from there. One lady, below, had a bunch of trophies. It turned out that it's being auctioned to pay off the 57 million USD she embezzled. If I were into trophies then I'd consider that. The house looks pretty nice - I didn't find that up for auction.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
One thing I happened to notice is that they're selling a bunch of poker tables. If I were to guess, these were taken from people who were running illegal casinos. I wonder if they ever considered that the new owner might do the same. Or perhaps, they're hoping the new owner will do the same...
One auction includes a wine collection of approximately 2,800 bottles seized from once prominent wine dealer Rudy Kurniawan, who is serving a 10-year federal prison sentence following his conviction of selling millions of dollars of counterfeit wine.
Man, they must think I'm stupid or something...
Where I live, for some reason alcoholic beverages never make to the evidence room.
Wait did you say shopping? *Zips fly*
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
I've been looking at some of the prices the auctions start at, and they can be ridiculous. This is mostly used merchandise, and some items it list for more than the same or comparable item would cost new if I just went to the store to buy it. Many prices are very reasonable, though.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Forgot the AC box?
I find the Cow thing hilarious, I don't know why people spew hate about it.
That one was particularly on topic and funny.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Oh, and they also have cow hides lower down.
http://www.txauction.com/detai...
http://www.txauction.com/detai...
http://www.txauction.com/detai...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I love the cow thing and sometimes do it, but never as AC.
No idea why my post was marked as troll. Anyone who RTFA or clicked the link to the auction would see why I made that post. (Hint: The auction is filled with thousands of horse-related items.)