| Dear Letters Editor: The failed "War on Drugs" cost a innocent man his life and the taxpayers a bundle while the culprits go unpunished and the beneficiaries of asset forfeiture continue to run amok. This is similar to a case in northern California I recall in which the Forestry Service coveted a ranch house on their boundary and fabricated a drug case to have it seized for their new headquarters. Its owner was also killed and no drugs were found. The SF Chronicle reported on January 12, that Los Angeles County and the federal government have tentatively agreed to pay $5 million to the survivors of a millionaire shot to death in a purported drug raid at his ranch near Malibu. The family of Donald P. Scott contends authorities staged the 1992 raid to seize the $5 million ranch under drug-forfeiture laws. No drugs were found on the 200-acre property near the Los Angeles-Ventura county line.... The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, the lead agency in the raid, were both named in the lawsuit. The county will pay $4 million and the federal government will pay $1 million. Before the raid the culprits had a Realtor run "comps" to determine how much each drug war agency would get from the theft of this man's property. Sincerely, Bill Holmes, Vice Chair Antelope Valley Libertarian Party P.O. Box 3202 Quartz Hill, California 93586 wtholmes@avlp.org, 661-943-7473 voice/fax http://www.avlp.org |
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