Sheriff’s Employee Embezzled Funds in Keeping with the Spirit of Civil Asset Forfeiture

Critics of civil asset forfeiture quite rightly refer to the practice of swiping cash and property from people accused (but not convicted) of crimes as “legalized theft.” That enrages law enforcement types who insist they’re just abiding by the law, never mind that the law is contemptible. But there are times when forfeiture clearly crosses over into outright robbery, such as when John Cox, an Albany County, New York, sheriff’s department employee, used seized proceeds to cover his lousy luck with cards or horses. It’s simultaneously awful and thoroughly in keeping with the policy of civil asset forfeiture.

“The head of the Albany County Sheriff’s Office business office was charged with grand larceny and five counts of forgery after he allegedly siphoned more than $68,000 from the department’s federal forfeiture funds account and forged Sheriff Craig Apple’s name to cover it up,” Albany’s Times-Union reported last week. “Apple said he believes Cox was using the money to pay off gambling debts.”

The case was highlighted by the Institute for Justice (I.J.), which works to end asset forfeiture.

“The misuse of forfeiture funds is shockingly common because civil forfeiture is inherently abusive and non-transparent,” said I.J. Senior Legislative Counsel Lee McGrath. “In just the past few years, we’ve seen a Pennsylvania deputy steal $200,000 from a safe, a Michigan prosecutor embezzle $600,000 in funds, and widespread problems with forfeiture reports in states like Kansas and Oklahoma.”

Notably, Cox’s personal redirection of forfeited assets was discovered in the course of a U.S. Justice Department audit of money acquired through civil asset forfeiture by the Albany County Sheriff’s Department and the Albany County District Attorney. That is, the feds suspected that the departments as a whole were misusing seized property and cash and accidentally discovered the business office manager’s personal pilfering in the process.

The Justice Department got involved only after county Comptroller Susan Rizzo issued an earlier audit finding the office of District Attorney David Soares was “not compliant with regulations that govern the expenditure of” both state and federal forfeiture funds. Soares’s office was found to have withheld roughly $365,000 in seized assets it was supposed to turn over to New York’s Office of Addiction Services and Supports.

A few months later, another audit by Rizzo found a similar “failure to comply with legal requirements in the processing of forfeited funds by the office of Sheriff Craig Apple. In additi