OFF THE WIRE
Like the grimmest cancers, the civil forfeiture case against present and
former members of the Mongols Motorcycle Club seems incurable. Fifty months
after the United States of America sent 1600 militarized police in five states
to arrest and harass members of the club and steal or break every possession
they could reach, the never ending Mongols case continues.
Most of the action these days is related to the motorcycles, cash, guns,
documents, electronics and mementos that police “seized” in October 2008. The
majority of the victims of this seizure were never accused of any crime. They
were never accused because they were at least as innocent as the Pope. All of
the stolen property was seized as “evidence.” By law, it should have been
returned in January 2009. The deadline was ignored because the judge then
presiding over the case, the late Florence Marie Cooper, died. So scores of
Mongols, relatives and friends of Mongols and people rumored to be connected to
the Mongols sued to get their property back. The resulting case is officially
called United States of America versus Assorted Firearms, Motorcycles and
Other Personal Property.
Never Gonna Get It
The most recent action in the case was an objection filed yesterday afternoon
by Juan Alfred Gonzalez, who now lives in Florida and who has been waiting four
years for the government of, by and for the people to return what it stole from
him. Gonzalez is representing himself because he cannot afford a lawyer and he
is objecting that he was never notified that he would have to sue the government
to get his property back.
The villain at the center of this mad drama is a portly and florid bully
named Steven R. Welk. Welk has been stone walling his victims for years. A week
ago he filed a motion “that on January 21, 2013, at 8:30 a.m., plaintiff United
States of America will present a Motion for the Entry of Default Judgment as to
the remaining defendants before the Honorable David O. Carter, United States
District Court, 411 West Fourth Street, Courtroom 9D, Santa Ana, California
92701.” It is basically the same motion Welk has been filing over and over for
four years. To hear him in court is to understand that he committed all these
accusations to memory long ago.
Welk argues that the victims of the government’s theft “were members and
associates of” what he calls “The Mongols Criminal Gang.” He defines this
“criminal gang” as “an organization engaged in, among other things, murder,
conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to traffic in
narcotics, narcotics trafficking, robbery, extortion, money laundering and
witness intimidation. This organization, known as the ‘Mongols’ outlaw
motorcycle gang, operated in the Central District of California, Southern
District of California and elsewhere.” More than half of the 31-page motion
reiterates and elaborates the same accusations the government made when the case
began.
Justice would be served if the government simply gave back what it stole.
Instead, Welk has spent years complicating the case and making it as difficult
and expensive as possible for victims of this injustice to even protest their
victimization. In a just America, government attorneys would seek truth and
fairness. This is not, as many readers already understand, a just America. This
is the America that is going broke. Simultaneously, this is the America that has
become addicted to police and punishment. And, those addictions are a large part
of the why and how of America going broke.
Billion – With a Bee
The extent to which the Department of Justice is itself a racket is
illustrated by a press release Welk’s boss, United States Attorney AndrĂ© Birotte
Jr., issued just three days after Welk filed his latest motion. The release
leads with this unabashed brag: “The United States Attorney’s Office for the
Central District of California collected more than $430 million as a result of
criminal prosecutions, civil lawsuits and asset forfeiture actions during the
2012 fiscal year….”
Birotte then states, “During the past five years, my office has collected
well over one and a half billion dollars – money that has gone to the federal
treasury and to victims of federal crimes…. Assistant U.S. Attorneys in this
office have collected an average of nearly $318 million in each of these years,
annually demonstrating their deep commitment to being fiscally responsible….
“
“Nationwide,” the release continues, “the United States Attorneys’ offices
collected $13.1 billion in criminal and civil actions during FY2012, more than
doubling the $6.5 billion collected the prior year. The $13.1 billion represents
more than six times the appropriated budget of the 94 U.S. Attorney’s
offices.”
Whether the Department of Justice should be more concerned with justice or
with slandering uncharged citizens for profit might reasonably be a matter worth
raising in political debate. But, the question was never raised in this election
year. And, it is probably fair to guess that most Americans have no idea that
this is how federal justice pays for itself.