Senator Wants To Know Why The US Marshals Asset Forfeiture Division Is Blowing Money On $10,000 Tables

from the converting-expensive-things-into-money-to-spend-on-expensive-things dept

Wed, Mar 25th 2015 2:50pm — Tim Cushing

Asset forfeiture -- both at state and national levels -- is receiving some intense scrutiny, thanks to unflattering coverage in major news outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post. Attorney General Eric Holder made some minor cuts to the DOJ's participation in states' forfeiture programs. Meanwhile, at the state level, legislators have introduced bills targeting these programs' perverted incentives -- namely, that the agency performing the asset seizure usually benefits directly from the "forfeited" wealth.

It hasn't always been successful. Wyoming legislators were shot down by the governor -- a former prosecutor -- who explained that asset forfeiture is "good" and "right" -- something it rarely is in practice. Washington DC's city council managed to push its reform bill through, placing more constraints on seizures and raising the evidentiary standard needed to declare other people's assets "guilty."

Back at the national level, Sen. Chuck Grassley is raising some pointed questions about the US Marshals' use of asset forfeiture funds. He sent two letters to the agency recently, the first of which questioned its hiring practices.

Grassley said a whistleblower claimed that Kimberly Beal, then the deputy assistant director of the AFD, had qualification requirements waived to hire a person for a high-paying contract who was recommended by Stacia Hylton, the director of the Marshals Service. According to the whistleblower, Beal did so while under consideration for her current position of assistant director, raising suspicions that the hiring was a quid pro quo arrangement.

“This quid pro quo exchange of favors, if true, would raise serious doubts about the operational practices of the USMS AFD under Ms. Beal as well as, frankly, Ms. Hylton’s leadership of the USMS,” Grassley’s office said in the letter.

The second letter questions the Marshals Service's appetite for office luxuries.

1. Regarding AFD offices at Crystal Mall 4, please answer the following questions:

a. Did AFD purchase a conference table that exceeded $10,000 in cost? If so, what was the cost and why was a less expensive table not considered?
b. Did AFD replace window treatments already provided for in the office lease with expensive custom window treatments? If so, why and what was the cost?
c. Did AFD install custom wallpaper, artwork, crown moldings, and chair rails in its offices? If so, why and at what cost for each of these installations?
d. Does AFD intend to expend similar amounts to decorate and furnish new office space it anticipates moving into in the near future? What will happen to the furnishings and decorations after AFD moves out?

That's the most eyegrabbing part of Grassley's letter but the rest asks similar -- if less dramatic -- questions about the agency's spending habits.

The US Marshals Service doesn't necessarily have a long history of asset forfeiture abuse, but it has previously been called out by the DOJ's Inspector General for being less than accurate with its bookkeeping.

In at least eight of the 55 cases taken up by the asset team between 2005 and 2010, the purchaser or the price of the asset was not recorded. On top of that, the team failed to perform sufficient market research to properly value the assets it was eyeing; for some of them, it couldn’t even provide the OIG with bank statements and other basic documentation.

More damning was the OIG's discovery of a huge conflict of interest. Another whistleblower uncovered lead asset forfeiture official Leonard Briskman's extremely fortuitous moonlighting gig. Briskman, who appraised assets for the US Marshals Service, ran his own private appraisal business on the side.

The inspector general reported that in several instances, Briskman valued and sold the same asset himself without supervision by anyone in the marshal’s office. In addition, he failed to publicly announce the sale of some assets, which limited their availability to the general public. In one case, an assistant U.S. Attorney from the Southern District of New York objected to a decision by Briskman to sell assets that had been seized during the Bernard Madoff case–more than one million shares of a pet prescription firm and a 5 percent stake in another investment portfolio–without announcing the sale.

The US Marshals Service doesn't need to dirty its hands by performing seizures. All it has to do is sit there and wait for assets from equitable sharing programs to roll in. And roll in they do, thanks to local law enforcement agencies partnering up with the DOJ to avoid state laws put in place to limit the sort of abuse that is all too frequent when cops are given the authority to declare money, vehicles and other property guilty on the spot.

As would befit any government agency spending other people's money and divesting itself of other people's property, the US Marshals Service buys $10,000 tables and does little to ensure its auctioned items return something close to market value. Because of its lax accounting and questionable appraisals, money from sales went AWOL and what it did receive from auctions was likely less than it would have obtained with a bit more diligence and competence.

Whether Grassley will receive any answers to his questions remains to be seen, but the recent history of the US Marshals Service doesn't indicate it's an agency enthralled with concepts like fiscal responsibility and public accountability. If the agency is blowing seized funds on pricey tables and custom window treatments, it's going to take more than a couple of angry letters to change its "Spend it like you seized it!" culture.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: asset forfeiture, spending, us marshals

22 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 25 Mar 2015 @ 3:04pm

Plywood on sawhorses
Table:

(1) 4x8 sheet 1in plywood
(2) sawhorses (fabricated from 2x4s + hardware)

Total cost: $10,000 (U.S. government preferred price)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Marshal Meathead, 25 Mar 2015 @ 3:09pm

We did and don't you say we didn't!
"a. Did AFD purchase a conference table that exceeded $10,000 in cost? If so, what was the cost and why was a less expensive table not considered?"

Hell yaeh we got it, we spent $47,853.28, delivered and installed! We know a guy, so we got it for a song!

We considered cheaper ones but they didn't have cup holders or those holes you can pull your cords through for the laptops to connect to the wireless router and LCD projectors, so we can do powerpoints and stuff about all the other cool stuff we are gonna be getting with the rest of Bernies leftovers... And those four banquet tables we were useing, the velco-on skirts kept getting caught in the wheels on all of our Aeron chairs when we raced 'em in the conference room, so it does not make sense to rent them from my brother-in-law's party supply store any more for a grand a day each.

Hope you like your answers Chuck! have a good time with that fund-raising! We'll keep doing it our way.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
That One Guy (profile), 25 Mar 2015 @ 3:27pm

Everything is cheap when you're not the one picking up the tab
It wouldn't surprise me at all if $10,000 for a table was the least of their wasteful spending. After all, it's not their money they're spending, why wouldn't they go all out and get the best stuff they can find, spreading their 'good fortune' around to friends when they can?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
John Fenderson (profile), 25 Mar 2015 @ 3:35pm

Easy to explain
It's just like buying random crap to use up the rest of a budget for the fiscal year: if you don't spend it, next year's budget gets reduced. Since the purpose of forfeiture is to increase revenue, if they don't use up all that stolen money then they might have problems justifying the ability to steal it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
JoeT, 25 Mar 2015 @ 3:55pm

Conference table
I work for a Fortune 50 company, and we happen to be doing a major remodel. We're tight-fisted with money (the remodel included saving the 50-year old ceiling tiles, and putting them back up, stains and all, after the re-cable), but you can't fake a new conference table to fit in the new-layout room. I overheard the real-estate people talking about the cost.

$10K (or even $50 K) is reasonable. For the biggest conference room they're spending more than that (delivered, cabled, and installed). It's meant to impress (meetings with customers and the like) and is made of solid-ish wood... but it should also last 50 years. IIRC the table it is replacing was about that old, and is likely to be pressed into service in a non-customer-facing room for another 20 years.

But yeah, I really can't fault them for a 10k table; if it 1) is bigger than standard, 2) had to be wired, 3) had to look nice for impressions sake, and 4) is intended to last a long time.

The expense seems reasonable. Of course, how they got the money is simply legalized robbery.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- That One Guy (profile), 25 Mar 2015 @ 4:05pm
  
  Re: Conference table
  A for-profit company might consider the cost reasonable, given an impressed potential customer is more likely to become a paying future customer, but a government agency like this should have no reason to need to 'impress' anyone, and as such should be able to get by with what's needed to do their jobs, and no more.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - JoeT, 25 Mar 2015 @ 5:20pm
    
    Re: Re: Conference table
    I'd still cut them a little slack. Even Office Depot will let you spend $3K on a mostly-plastic table (looks nice now, but wanna bet about 5 years from now?). Sure, the US government doesn't need to impress a customer, but they still have reasons to put on a good face. E.g. cowing their vendors, or intimidating a target of regulation.
    
    I dislike excess spending by the government quite intensely... but I also know that quality office furniture can be ungodly expensive. It isn't directly obvious how much was spent, but for a big conference room even a budget table is going to hit $10K.
    
    Mostly, I think that the Senator from Iowa shouldn't focus on $10K conference tables... but rather that said tables were funded by even two red cents of essentially stolen funds. Overspending is so common as to be (sadly) mostly acceptable.
    
    But we should resist tooth and nail the concept that they can simply steal money from the people, without whingingly thorough due process.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - nasch (profile), 26 Mar 2015 @ 12:52pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: Conference table
      
      I dislike excess spending by the government quite intensely... but I also know that quality office furniture can be ungodly expensive.
      
      If so, then they should have no trouble providing a few competitive quotes that they obtained at the time and explaining why they went with the one they bought.
      
      Mostly, I think that the Senator from Iowa shouldn't focus on $10K conference tables... but rather that said tables were funded by even two red cents of essentially stolen funds.
      
      Quite true, that is the much more important problem.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- DogBreath, 26 Mar 2015 @ 9:08am
  
  Re: Conference table
  1) is bigger than standard, 2) had to be wired, 3) had to look nice for impressions sake, and 4) is intended to last a long time.
  
  The Answer to their problems:
  
  Upcycle, Repurposed, Furniture, Custom Built Table Out Of A Old Farm Door - Redneck Restoration
  
  (1) Farmhouse doors are bigger than standard
  
  (2) Has easy access hole for wiring (where doorknob use to be)
  
  (3) Who doesn't love the rustic look of an old farmhouse door?
  
  (4) Door lasted in a farmhouse... I think it will last in the US Marshals Asset Forfeiture Division
  
  P.S. If they need a bigger table, they can just add more farmhouse doors.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- John Fenderson (profile), 26 Mar 2015 @ 10:16am
  
  Re: Conference table
  That Fortune 50 corporations are willing to waste their money of fancy conference tables is one thing, but the government should not be doing it. Spending big bucks just to look impressive is idiocy.
  
  But then, I'm a believer in the "chandelier rule". The more money a company spends to impress people, the less trustworthy that company is. There are exceptions, but in my experience it tends to hold true.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Spaceman Spiff (profile), 25 Mar 2015 @ 5:38pm

Why?
Why is our government and its agencies so damned corrupt? Supposedly the various IG (Inspector General) departments are there to deal with such cruft, but they are hamstrung. It is time we gave them the power to prosecute corrupt practices and refusal to cooperate with them is a felony!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Padpaw (profile), 26 Mar 2015 @ 10:49am
  
  Re: Why?
  apathetic citizenry that cares more for only their personal wants and needs than what is good for the whole perhaps.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
CanadianByChoice (profile), 25 Mar 2015 @ 8:03pm

Profit from crime?
While I don't have a problem with the idea of taking the profit out of crime - isn't this exactly what they (LEOs) are doing? profiting from theft?
I would stipulate that for there to be an "asset forfiture", two things should happen:
(1) there should be a conviction for a crime that directly resulted in the aquisition of the asset, and (2) the original "owner" (victom) can be identified so that the entire "asset" can be returned to the "rightful" owner (no withholding or "fees" by the LEO). If either of these conditions fail, then they should not be able to seize the asset. This type of rule is the only way to prevent the very corruption we are seeing so much of now.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- nasch (profile), 26 Mar 2015 @ 1:28pm
  
  Re: Profit from crime?
  (2) the original "owner" (victom) can be identified so that the entire "asset" can be returned to the "rightful" owner (no withholding or "fees" by the LEO).
  
  That would only apply to stolen property. It seems reasonable to me to have illegally obtained money and goods forfeited, and maybe items used to commit a crime. There must be due process though, and I don't think what we have now qualifies. It would also be nice if this were applied to bankers as well as drug dealers.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Marshal, 25 Mar 2015 @ 10:05pm

Funny, senators complain about overpaying for a conference table while their offices are some of the most extravagant offices going. What a joke. All at the tax payers expense to- at least the USMS is paying for its stuff with perp proceeds...

Go pound sand....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
M. Alan Thomas II (profile), 25 Mar 2015 @ 10:19pm

Clearly the AFD has acquired some of its property and money in a manner not consistent with the law (or at least internal rules and regulations). They should have all of their ill-gotten gains seized by Congress.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 26 Mar 2015 @ 1:01am

With any government agency spending other people's money, it's not just an issue of what they waste it on but who they waste it on. Nepotism is one of the basic tenets of government, so any time you follow the money, you're likely to trace it back to the pockets of the friends, relatives, and business associates -- and increasingly these days, the future employer-- of the very agency director that signed off on the purchase.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
David, 26 Mar 2015 @ 7:03am

$10000 for a conference table is a steal
They likely paid the carpenter in cash, then had an officer stop him on the way home and confiscate the cash in a search of the truck prompted by a suspicious smell of glue.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 26 Mar 2015 @ 7:44am

The US Marshals Service doesn't necessarily have a long history of asset forfeiture abuse,
So they do not have a long history of using asset forfeiture laws? As I see it, almost any forfeiture not preceded by a court finding that the assets were direct proceeds of a crime for which the owner was convicted is abuse.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
David, 26 Mar 2015 @ 8:54am

Remember when you were supposed to spend like it was your money?
And not like it was someone elses? Oh yeah. It is someone elses - very literally.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Spike (profile), 26 Mar 2015 @ 10:42am

Must have knew that Kim Dotcom's assets would be theirs long before the actual trial to convict him ever begins...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Mike A., 26 Mar 2015 @ 2:30pm

They didn't so much buy the table, as rent it for 5 hours on a Saturday night at Marquee in New York. It came with 5 liters of Grey Goose and 2 liters of Patron, and a half dozen bottles of champagne.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]