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IPFS News Link • Forfeiture & Seizure

Guilty Until Proven Innocent, Robbed Of Every Penny

• Stateless Statements
According to the present legal code of the United States justice system, if an individual is charged with a crime that bears significant financial implications (such as conspiracy or embezzlement), the government is literally allowed to seize and withhold any and all assets that it deems to be related to the criminal charges that are pending against the accused party--regardless of whether or not any hearing has been held in order to prove the connection of such funds with any crimes. The logic behind this policy is presumably that if a criminal has committed some sort of financial misdoing which resulted in an unlawfully-obtained fortune, he or she should not be allowed to use such ill-gotten funds to his own advantage in order to fight off the charges. The idea admittedly makes sense on paper, certainly, but has in practice taken on a life of its own, resulting in unthinkable sums of accumulated assets that have been seized by the state in order to cripple the ability of accused