Philadelphia authorities enjoy robbing its innocent citizens and spending the money on fancy stuff for their own use.

"Taken" is a blood-boiling, beautifully written expose on America's "civil forfeiture" laws by which people who are tangentially related to suspected drug offenses have their assets seized, even when no charges are filed and no guilt is found. The story, which Sarah Stillman wrote for The New Yorker, revolves around the notorious town of Tenaha, TX, a small town on US 59 where a corrupt system allowed cops to pull over people — mostly brown people — and simply take away all their possessions: their cars, their cash, even the gold crosses around their necks. — Read the rest

Radley Balko posted about a woman in Wayne County who broke no laws yet had to pay $1,400 to get her car back when police seized it "after they mistook Vaughn's co-worker for a prostitute."

From a Detroit News article:

The Wayne County Sheriff's Office, which helps run the prosecutor's forfeiture unit, took in $8.69 million from civil seizures in 2007, more than four times the amount collected in 2001.

Cops and their kids get to use confiscated cars in St. Louis for free.

Seems that the city of St. Louis, like many cities, allows the police to confiscate the cars of people suspected (but not necessarily convicted) of certain crimes.

(UPDATE: Erika Bolstad says: "I saw your item about Rep. Bill Sali, and as the reporter who wrote the original stories about the ATF issue (in a newspaper, at least; this has been an issue on some Second Amendment and property rights blogs for a few months) thought you might want to consider other versions of the story. — Read the rest

A Japanese bus driver just learned that the price of a $7 theft is exactly $84,000 in pension benefits.

As reported in Mainichi, the case, which ended up in the Supreme Court this month, centers on a 58-year-old Kyoto City Bus driver who pocketed a 1,000-yen ($7) bill instead of dropping it in the fare box. — Read the rest

Kseniia Petrova is a scientist at Harvard Medical School. Born in Russia, Petrova's been busy developing computer scripts essential for decoding the findings of a new kind of microscope. It's a device so unique that it has the potential to lead to astounding breakthroughs in the early detection of cancers. — Read the rest

George Santos, the criminally convicted congressman who got into the U.S. House of Representatives after the criminally useless New York Democrats failed to put up a fight in the Long Island race he ran in, will not be sentenced until April. — Read the rest

Boneless chicken doesn't have to be, ruled Ohio's Supreme Court, siding against a diner who choked on a bone and sued the restaurant that served it. The court affirmed its earlier judgement that landed on the same absurd justification: "Boneless" refers not to the bones of the chicken but to a "cooking style. — Read the rest

President Nixon created the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 1973 to persecute Blacks and antiwar activists. Over 50 years later, it's still in operation, serving as an employer for sociopathic goons and drug cartel moles.

And today the DEA is hopping mad because the Department of Justice (DOJ) has finally clipped its wings. — Read the rest

ESPN won't stop using the emergency alert sound in promotional spots, and now faces its third fine for doing so. $146,000 is on the line, and past outcomes suggest it will end up paid.

The offending ads contained the unauthorized EAS tune and were aired six times from October 20 to 24, 2023.

The insurrectionary accouterments of Jacob Chansley, better known as QAnon Shaman, must be returned to him. A judge ordered the U.S. Justice Department to give him back the "unmistakeable outfit" confiscated when Chansley was arrested for his part in the Jan 6, 2021 riots on Capitol Hill. — Read the rest

Rhode Island's Red Flag laws: because if threatening an officer, exposing yourself, and urinating in a police car isn't enough, what is?

The Boston Globe recently published a harrowing story about a murder-suicide that took place in Rhode Island. Aside from the obvious horror of it—every murder-suicide is an awful tragedy regardless—this particular also illuminated some of the unfortunate shortcomings of so-called "Red Flag" laws. — Read the rest

ICE operated a fake school, the University of Farmington, supposedly as a sting operation to identify people living in the U.S. on illegal student visas. But it was really just a scam, taking tens of thousands of dollars from those who applied and subsequently refusing to return it irrespective of their immigration status. — Read the rest

Down-and-out former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli is being sued for copying and distributing the one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album he purchased in 2015 for $2 million. According to PleasrDAO, a digital art collective that bought the album from the Department of Justice for $4 million after it was seized from Shkreli to pay off his debts, Shkreli violated the terms of both the original purchase agreement and the forfeiture order. — Read the rest

Martin Shkreli, infamously known as "PharmaBro," was convicted of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy back in 2017 for his involvement in some casual pharmaceutical price fixing, and swiftly established a reputation for his trollish douchebaggery.

At one point, Shkreli used his ill-gotten gains to purchase an incredibly rare Wu-Tang Clan album, of which only one single copy exists in the world. — Read the rest

The disgraced former president just can't help himself from spewing toxic sludge all over the Internet, and New York DA Alvin Bragg is doing his best to plug the hole. This morning Bragg filed a memorandum "In Support of the Motion for Contempt" against Donald Trump, who willfully violated a court order this week by attacking witnesses Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels on his sad little Truth Social platform. — Read the rest

A U.S. Marine was released from confinement last week and a sexual assault charge against him dropped. It emerged the 14-year-old girl he hid on barracks for days had told him online that she was 22.

He pleaded guilty to the remaining charge of breach of restriction for leaving base in a private vehicle… Rosario already served more than twice the maximum one-month confinement outlined as punishment for such cases.

Civil asset forfeiture allows police to take cash, vehicles and even houses from people without charging them. They get to keep the proceeds, and it's difficult to challenge in court. Studies show that more property is taken this way than is stolen by burglars, and now Kansas has joined the states reining in what reformers decry as legalized theft. — Read the rest

Family Dollar surely hates those meeces to pieces, but it didn't get rid of them and must pay a record fine for its vermin-infested warehouse. The company must pay more than $41m because of the "live rodents, dead and decaying rodents, rodent feces, urine and odors," the Justice Department reports. — Read the rest