
Another Ortiz case - eric_bullington
http://www.wbur.org/2012/11/14/tewksbury-motel-owner-fights-property-seizure
======
tptacek
Repeating a comment from another thread:

Any time you read a story like "government attempts to liquidate real property
to fund police department", your first thought should be "that's not the whole
story", because (for the most part) that's not how the federal government
operates. So, some issues with this story:

* This case is Sonya Rao, not Carmen Ortiz (though once again Ortiz oversees all the cases in her office).

* The hotel is, let's not sugarcoat it, a blighted flophouse. Don't take my word for it; here's TripAdvisor ("ROOMS BY THE HOUR: Hookers, drug addicts, drug dealers, need I say more") complete with picture: <http://tinyurl.com/ta-caswell> and here's Yelp ("Please don't bring your kids here.") <http://tinyurl.com/y-caswell>

* The owners of the hotel were warned repeatedly by local law enforcement and an intervention of local hotel owners; specific measures were suggested to minimize the problems at this place and weren't taken; the hotel had no security, and its drug countermeasures consisted of a list of persons not to rent to again.

* The hotel owners made no policy changes after a methamphetamine lab was discovered in one of their rooms.

* The hotel owners made no changes after the dead body of a heroin overdose victim was found in one of their rooms.

* Drug deals weren't simply occurring at the hotel; the Tewskbury PD repeatedly discovered drug dealers operating full-time out of rooms in the hotel.

* The owners of the hotel repeatedly admitted under oath that they had continuing knowledge of drug crimes occurring on their premises, and had no policies to investigate the use of their rooms.

There are places like this all over America and they're all neighborhood
blights that need to be shut down (hey, by the way, still think there couldn't
possibly be a difference between an apartment and a room up for temporary let
on Airbnb?).

If all we're saying is that civil asset forfeiture is the wrong means to shut
them down, I'm with you. But this case does not make my blood boil the way it
does for some. Beyond that, I'm not sure HN is a great place to debate it.

~~~
maratd
> The owners of the hotel repeatedly admitted under oath that they had
> continuing knowledge of drug crimes occurring on their premises, and had no
> policies to investigate the use of their rooms.

Your entire comment essentially boils down to this. I reject the notion that
there is something wrong with using drugs ... but even if you don't, do you
really think the hotel owners should be Drug War warriors, enforcing the law,
and turning their own _customers_ in to the authorities?

~~~
tptacek
Yes, I think that business owners shouldn't be allowed to knowingly profit
from having their property used as a staging ground for armed crack and heroin
dealers, street-level prostitution, and methamphetamine manufacturing. I think
that because all of those activities create externalities that impose terrible
costs on neighbors and on the whole township.

~~~
encoderer
Ding, Ding, Ding.

I was enraged at first but when I had this same thought, it changed my mind.

Truth is, it would be bad for business if Caswell took an activist approach
towards cleaning up his property. Or at the very least, _he_ believes it would
be bad or else you'd think he'd have done it by now. He does, after all, _live
on the premises._

All this "behind closed doors." Sure, wink wink, nod nod.

Perhaps the gov't needs to build more of a paper-trail (assuming the news
article I read was correct that this guy has not had any formal issues
renewing various licenses and such) but yeah, you don't get to profit off of
criminal activity and not expect the public to do something about it.

------
praptak
This quote made me stop: _“As he describes his job, he looks through the
newspapers and looks at the Internet, looking for news stories of properties
that might be forfeitable and brings them to the attention of the U.S.
attorney,” Caswell’s attorney, Larry Salzman, said.

According to the agent’s sworn testimony, he then goes to the Registry of
Deeds to determine the value of the targeted property. The DEA rejects
anything with less than $50,000 equity."_

Ouch. I knew about the US forfeiture laws but this still managed to surprise
me. The agents seem to have left any connection with justice and are pretty
open about their real goal: grabbing money.

~~~
nonamegiven
So he's a real estate agent then?

~~~
praptak
Ba-dum tsss. But seriously, suppose that this agency needs a new office. What
stops them from finding some nice buildings, link them to owners and
investigate them just in case? They would be doing their jobs, with the
potential bonus of a free office. A true real estate agency.

Yeah, false slippery slope and all but is it really a false one?

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unreal37
This story is outrageous. Outrageous. 14 crimes have occurred there in 15
years... And the government just wants to seize $1.5 million worth of property
and keep the proceeds. That is itself a crime.

It's not the hotel owners job to do the job of the police. I don't want to
check into a hotel and have them check my police record, ask if I am planning
to have visitors, scan my luggage in a metal detector to see if I am carrying
anything suspicious or illegal. Not their job.

If they see a crime occurring or something suspicious, call it in. Fine. But
to hold private business owners responsible for the conduct of their
customers? Ridiculous.

~~~
tptacek
I think you are probably misinformed about the history of this property. The
directly cited criminal cases in the evidence for the property spans a 7 page
bulleted wall of text. Multiple people died there. They found meth labs there.
On multiple separate engagements, retail drug operations were found running
out of rooms in the property. And that's just the drug crimes.

The government can't just "seize" the property. They're suing the property in
civil court. For what appears to be very good reason. The whole thing is
receiving a full hearing in front of an impartial judge.

~~~
petegrif
Sounds to me to be exactly the kind of property a town needs. Get all that bad
shit in one place so the police don't have to work finding the perps. Just
station some agents in the hotel and go fishing.

~~~
m0nastic
Governments tried something similar with various housing project initiatives
throughout the later part of the twentieth century.

It was an unmitigated disaster, and public policy has now shifted 180 degrees
(with the biggest change in policy coming from the passing of the Public
Housing Reform Act in 1998).

Even DC, where I live, has been working to undo fifty years of bad housing
policy, with the shuttering and redevelopment of projects.

While serving on a homicide grand jury, ~20 of the 100 or so homicides we
heard occurred at Sursom Corda, one of the last projects in the city, which
was finally closed down.

------
trotsky
I usually don't go in for commenting about the drug war because it's dumb and
i'm over preaching to the converted. But I couldn't resist sidestepping the
obvious revenue issue here and note that on any number of occasions I've
stayed at perfectly straight hotels presumably run by upstanding members of
the community that almost without a doubt had more than 15 felony drug
offenses occurring just on that day!

If your standards can include 9 years of traffic and a baker's dozen of issues
it seems like a vast majority of lodging would be in danger of a zealous
prosecutor.

Now I'm sure this guy has in some way separated himself out in the states
attorney's mind as compared to the usual econolodge, but that's faint comfort.
Working for a time with federal investigators it became clear that pretty much
100% of the population is guilty of something if you're looking, usually
something that can be finessed into a no joke federal rap.

It's very unusual that it ever becomes an issue - but you get the right
combination of attention, timing and bad luck or malice and then suddenly your
world turns upside down. It seems like this happens really often when you're a
target or related to an investigation, they put together what they think is a
solid case only to find out whoops they got it wrong you're obviously not
their guy. At that point god help you if you're stealing cable or borrowing
your brother's wifi or were growing a tiny pot plant in the basement.

I wonder what even the theoretical justification for something like this would
be. If we seize the hotel then those junkies will stop shooting heroin because
they cant get a chill hotel room in town?

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krutulis
_"U.S. Attorney Ortiz said through a spokeswoman last week that the government
wanted to send a message by going after the motel .... up the street Walmart
and Home Depot have all experienced a similar rate of drug crimes ....
attorney Salzman says there’s one good reason Ortiz didn’t go after them ....
the U.S. Attorney’s office, looking to make an example, picked on the smallest
kid on the block.”_

Where have we heard this story before? It seems as if the Judiciary Committee
might have more than just the Aaron Swartz case to consider.

------
rosser
If even an tenth of the attention that's been paid to Aaron and his case over
the last week could be shined on the heinous violation of Due Process that is
Civil Forfeiture, I'd consider that, alone, a victory.

~~~
rayiner
Seriously.

As this case shows, it's an injustice that almost entirely hits the lower
classes.

It's not a conspiracy. There is even a certain logic to it: if drug dealers
keep using a particular place as a meet up spot, you have to wonder if the
owner isn't turning a blind eye to keep the business. But: this is a cheap
motel. Of course it's going to be a hotbed for shady things. If you're up to
something shady, where do you go, the Ritz?

But the forfeiture laws are completely insensitive to these facts. All they do
is to work the taking of property from the poor just because by virtue of
being poor (or serving the poor) crime happens in their midst.

~~~
tptacek
The owner of this hotel was almost certainly turning a blind eye to keep the
business.

The owners of the hotel aren't poor (the tenants obviously are, though).

Unlike many CAF cases, this one received a full hearing in front of a judge
with evidence presented from both sides.

~~~
rayiner
Very interesting post up top--I didn't know that.

You're right--even though I think civil forfeiture is wrong, I can see how
this would not be a sympathetic case in front of a judge.

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thinkcomp
The actual docket is here:

<http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=1823970>

You can help shine a light on what the DOJ and USAO are up to (and continue
what Aaron Swartz started by downloading PACER) using this tool:

<http://www.plainsite.org/asymptote/>

If you follow the directions, it doesn't cost anything.

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sgfc
I have been following this case for quite some time. I think it is worth
noting that the defence lawyers[1] are a pro bono libertarian law firm,
initially funded by the Koch brothers, that strategically litigates media
friendly cases. It has been said that "In pursuit of its goal of a radical
laissez-faire capitalism, the Institute has initiated a number of lawsuits
aimed at ending government regulation of business. While the lawsuits
generally involve small businesses, often in communities of color, the goal is
to set a legal precedent for the deregulation of big business in general."[2]

As a bit of silly trivia, in the movie "Invention of Lying" Ricky Gervais'
character had a quicky fling set there where it was named "A Cheap Motel for
Intercourse with a Near Stranger".

[1] <http://www.ij.org/massachusetts-civil-forfeiture> [2]
<http://my.execpc.com/~ajrc/ifj.html> [3]
[http://www.futuregamez.net/movies/inventionoflying/invention...](http://www.futuregamez.net/movies/inventionoflying/inventionoflying2.jpg)

~~~
jmcguckin
If someone wants to demonize an organization they don't like, it's popular to
accuse them of having ties to the Koch brothers.

Well, here's some other (obviously evil) organizations funded by the Kochs:

    
    
      - ACLU
      - MIT
      - NYC Ballet
      - American Museum of Natural History
      - PBS
      - Lincoln Center

~~~
erichocean
Dude, you're hurting the narrative. Not cool.

------
btilly
It is wonderful that these stories are coming up.

But is there a wiki somewhere that is tracking these so that when people go
and look at Ortiz in more detail, we've got a quick way of educating them?

~~~
thinkcomp
I think PlainSite is probably the closest thing. It lets you tag cases (if you
sign up) and search by attorney or legal entity.

<http://www.plainsite.org>

------
thomasvendetta
Carmen Ortiz sounds like nothing more than a state-sponsored terrorist.

~~~
hachiya
Prosecutors in general are professional conspiracy theorists.

------
aneth4
Civil forfeiture laws are the scariest government threat to American freedoms
and rights.

Unfortunately they have been upheld by the Supreme Court. And oddly, the
freedom touting Republicans have traditionally supported these laws as they
are "tough in crime."

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arbuge
Seems to me the whole gang in the Boston DA office need to go, starting from
Ortiz and working swiftly all the way down.

Thomas Jefferson - "A government afraid of its citizens is a democracy.
Citizens afraid of government is tyranny."

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niels_olson
This seems like the physical equivalent of mega.co.nz, a "dangerous property".

The owner may be upstanding, but the people we expect to protect us (the
gov't) see it as a nest of thieves, regardless of who owns it. But if that
were illegal, it seems to me Vegas would have been plowed under a long time
ago.

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chris_wot
It occurs to me that Ortiz is having a spotlight done upon her office. She
finally went too far, now people are questioning her actions.

Transparency's a bitch.

------
alan_cx
Are government buildings at risk when elected officials commit crime in them?

