Sometimes, not violating the law can get you in trouble with the law. Just ask the Hirsch family from Long Island, New York.
Or, better yet, ask Loretta E. Lynch, the U.S. attorney who could be the nation’s next attorney general.
After nearly three years of legal battles, the federal government dropped its case against the Hirschs, who own a distribution company that serves convenience stores on Long Island.
The government agreed to return more than $446,000 in assets and cash seized by the Internal Revenue Service in 2012 under federal civil asset forfeiture laws, even though the Hirsch family was never charged with a crime.
“This is a significant victory not only for the Hirsch brothers, but for property owners around the country,” said Larry Salzman, an attorney for the Institute for Justice, which joined the Hirsch’s case in 2014. “No American should lose their bank account or other property to law enforcement without even being charged with a crime.”
Why was the IRS interested in the Hirsch family in the first place?
Under federal law, all bank deposits of more than $10,000 must be reported to the IRS. The Hirschs never deposited more than the legal limit, but the officers who investigated the family wrote in an affidavit that daily deposits ranging from $500 to $9,000 were suspicious enough to seize their bank account.
The IRS never filed criminal charges against Jeff Hirsch, or his two brothers who co-own the business.
It took two and a half years, but the family is finally going to get its money back. The agreement signed with the federal government requires the Hirschs to pay their own legal fees and clears the feds of any wrongdoing in the case.
The case was handled, and officially dropped, by Lynch, President Barack Obama’s pick to be the nation’s next attorney general, pending approval by the U.S. Senate.
Lynch, the editors of the Wall Street Journal noted in November, has been an “enthusiastic grabber of private assets” during her tenure as a U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
Loretta E. Lynch (Photo: Justin Lane/Newscom)
The U.S. Justice Department says Lynch’s office collected more than $113 million in civil forfeiture actions from 123 cases between 2011 and 2013 — including the $446,000 seized from the Hirschs in Long Island.
Lynch’s confirmation hearing this week came at a time when civil asset forfeiture laws are under intense scrutiny.
The current head of the Justice Department, Attorney General Eric Holder, made headlines by announcing the federal government would suspend its program that shares assets seized through civil forfeiture with local and state police departments.
According to the Government Accountability Office, civil forfeiture has been on the rise in recent years as federal law enforcement agencies seek to pad their bottom lines.
In 2003, forfeiture brought in about $218 million to the federal government, a total that climbed to $450 million by 2011, the GAO reported.
Common Sense For Drug Policy, a nonprofit that advocates for ending the federal war on drugs, estimates federal law enforcement has seized more than $12 billion in cash and assets since 1990.
That total does not take into account the untracked number of forfeiture cases in state and local jurisdictions, which is practically untrackable but estimated to be well into the millions of dollars each year.