Another Ortiz case

http://www.wbur.org/2012/11/14/tewksbury-motel-owner-fights-property-seizure

208 136 14 years ago

krutulis• 14 years ago

"U.S. Attorney Ortiz said through a spokeswoman last week that the government wanted to send a message by going after the motel .... up the street Walmart and Home Depot have all experienced a similar rate of drug crimes .... attorney Salzman says there’s one good reason Ortiz didn’t go after them .... the U.S. Attorney’s office, looking to make an example, picked on the smallest kid on the block.”

Where have we heard this story before? It seems as if the Judiciary Committee might have more than just the Aaron Swartz case to consider.

rosser• 14 years ago

If even an tenth of the attention that's been paid to Aaron and his case over the last week could be shined on the heinous violation of Due Process that is Civil Forfeiture, I'd consider that, alone, a victory.

rayiner9• 14 years ago

Seriously.

As this case shows, it's an injustice that almost entirely hits the lower classes.

It's not a conspiracy. There is even a certain logic to it: if drug dealers keep using a particular place as a meet up spot, you have to wonder if the owner isn't turning a blind eye to keep the business. But: this is a cheap motel. Of course it's going to be a hotbed for shady things. If you're up to something shady, where do you go, the Ritz?

But the forfeiture laws are completely insensitive to these facts. All they do is to work the taking of property from the poor just because by virtue of being poor (or serving the poor) crime happens in their midst.

tptacek23• 14 years ago

The owner of this hotel was almost certainly turning a blind eye to keep the business.

The owners of the hotel aren't poor (the tenants obviously are, though).

Unlike many CAF cases, this one received a full hearing in front of a judge with evidence presented from both sides.

thomasvendetta• 14 years ago

Carmen Ortiz sounds like nothing more than a state-sponsored terrorist.

hachiya• 14 years ago

Prosecutors in general are professional conspiracy theorists.

frozenport• 14 years ago

Watching too much Foxy News, aren't we now?

thinkcomp2• 14 years ago

The actual docket is here:

http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=1823970

You can help shine a light on what the DOJ and USAO are up to (and continue what Aaron Swartz started by downloading PACER) using this tool:

http://www.plainsite.org/asymptote/

If you follow the directions, it doesn't cost anything.

tptacek23• 14 years ago

Repeating a comment from another thread:

Any time you read a story like "government attempts to liquidate real property to fund police department", your first thought should be "that's not the whole story", because (for the most part) that's not how the federal government operates. So, some issues with this story:

* This case is Sonya Rao, not Carmen Ortiz (though once again Ortiz oversees all the cases in her office).

* The hotel is, let's not sugarcoat it, a blighted flophouse. Don't take my word for it; here's TripAdvisor ("ROOMS BY THE HOUR: Hookers, drug addicts, drug dealers, need I say more") complete with picture: http://tinyurl.com/ta-caswell and here's Yelp ("Please don't bring your kids here.") http://tinyurl.com/y-caswell

* The owners of the hotel were warned repeatedly by local law enforcement and an intervention of local hotel owners; specific measures were suggested to minimize the problems at this place and weren't taken; the hotel had no security, and its drug countermeasures consisted of a list of persons not to rent to again.

* The hotel owners made no policy changes after a methamphetamine lab was discovered in one of their rooms.

* The hotel owners made no changes after the dead body of a heroin overdose victim was found in one of their rooms.

* Drug deals weren't simply occurring at the hotel; the Tewskbury PD repeatedly discovered drug dealers operating full-time out of rooms in the hotel.

* The owners of the hotel repeatedly admitted under oath that they had continuing knowledge of drug crimes occurring on their premises, and had no policies to investigate the use of their rooms.

There are places like this all over America and they're all neighborhood blights that need to be shut down (hey, by the way, still think there couldn't possibly be a difference between an apartment and a room up for temporary let on Airbnb?).

If all we're saying is that civil asset forfeiture is the wrong means to shut them down, I'm with you. But this case does not make my blood boil the way it does for some. Beyond that, I'm not sure HN is a great place to debate it.

caf• 14 years ago

If the government doesn't like the way they're running their business, surely they should either charge them with an actual crime or buy them out.

tptacek23• 14 years ago

That's exactly what the government is doing: they're suing the property because it's the instrument of serious crimes. The owners of the property are defending it in court.

There's a whole weird history of civil asset forfeiture being abused, such as when the one black guy in a rural Ohio town is pulled over on his way to buy a new truck with cash, and the cops seize the cash under CAF rules on suspicion that the guy's a drug dealer. I AM NOT ARGUING THAT CIVIL ASSET FORFEITURE IS OK. But you'd want to be careful (not "agree with me", just, careful) being knee-jerk about this stuff.

erichocean7• 14 years ago

@tptacek

Out of morbid curiosity, does the government ever do anything wrong? Whenever you comment on a story involving government, I know, without fail, that you are going to somehow take the "pro-goverment" line.

You've done it here. You did it with Aaron Swartz. I've seen you do it on other threads where civil libertarians are outraged about one thing or another.

So: do you ever actually side with the people? Or is it just all government, all the time with you? I ask because I'm starting to tune you out, and you make such insightful comments on other topics.

tptacek23• 14 years ago

Huh? Where are you reading that I'm OK with what happened to Aaron Swartz? I am the opposite of OK with what happened to Aaron Swartz.

Just because I don't use the exact same reasoning as you do to arrive at the same conclusion does not mean I am in a bucket with "people who think Swartz got what he deserved".

What I'm guessing happened is this: you think what happened to Aaron was terrible because the conduct outlawed under CFAA shouldn't be criminal. I think what happened to Aaron was terrible because the sentencing mechanisms under CFAA are insane and scale trivial offenses to multi-year sentences by having them track "damages". Both of us arrive at the same conclusion, that Aaron was maltreated by prosecutors, but by different means.

This way of thinking, where anyone who disagrees with a specific point about Aaron Swartz must somehow be on the side of the government, is a pox on the whole site.

rayiner9• 14 years ago

Not speaking for tptacek, but in my opinion the civil libertarians online, even on HN, get worked up on some pretty misinformed bases. It's slightly more sophisticated than the e-mails your grandma forwards you claiming Obama is a muslim, but not by much.

wes-exp• 14 years ago

I've noticed the same thing.

I apologize in advance if this is completely off-base, but, my personal theory is that due to tptacek's work in security, he is afraid to take a harder stance against government wrongdoing. Perhaps this would risk his (or his company's) eligibility for future security clearance and/or government contracts.

To quote Upton Sinclair, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it!"

corresation• 14 years ago

I find your argument to have zero constructive value. Aside from the gross exaggeration to attempt to attack the speaker instead of the idea, it is possible that some have a more "law and order" outlook on the world, while others have more of a "fear law and order" outlook. That this is repeatedly demonstrate should surprise no one, and your statement of it as if you've unearthed some grand conspiracy borders on obnoxious. You'll get the up-arrows by people so utterly desperate to be outraged by this story, but you deserve none.

maratd• 14 years ago

> The owners of the hotel repeatedly admitted under oath that they had continuing knowledge of drug crimes occurring on their premises, and had no policies to investigate the use of their rooms.

Your entire comment essentially boils down to this. I reject the notion that there is something wrong with using drugs ... but even if you don't, do you really think the hotel owners should be Drug War warriors, enforcing the law, and turning their own customers in to the authorities?

tptacek23• 14 years ago

Yes, I think that business owners shouldn't be allowed to knowingly profit from having their property used as a staging ground for armed crack and heroin dealers, street-level prostitution, and methamphetamine manufacturing. I think that because all of those activities create externalities that impose terrible costs on neighbors and on the whole township.

rayiner9• 14 years ago

You don't think there is anything with knowingly profiting from illegal activity?

mpyne3• 14 years ago

It would be one thing perhaps if it was people selling weed out of their room but meth labs are actively dangerous. Crack dealers are not "nice people", they are generally well-armed and their customers are not always white Wall St. execs, they often are criminals (other-than-drug) themselves and that can endanger other motel guests, neighboring homes and businesses, and more.

Just because you believe there's nothing wrong with using drugs doesn't mean that current drug dealers are perfectly savory characters.

eaurouge• 14 years ago

I reject the notion that there is something wrong with using drugs

I'm going to guess you don't share your neighborhood with crack houses, meth labs, drug dealers etc

MichaelSalib• 14 years ago

"Drug crimes" covers a very broad spectrum from smoking pot to making meth. I don't think motels should be overly eager to report pot smokers, but meth makers? My God, do you have any idea how dangerous meth synthesis is? If you screw up meth production, explosions and toxic chemical releases are likely. No one with a brain should want a meth lab on their property.

I wouldn't bring up the meth lab, except...they had a meth lab on their property.

btilly3• 14 years ago

Yeah, it is a crappy hotel in a crappy area of town. You can't run a quality institution in that kind of neighborhood. As evidence of this, look at the hotel's claim that the Motel 6, Walmart and Home Depot up the street have similar crime rates.

As for your specific statements, I find it hard to reconcile your claim that owners "...were warned repeatedly by local law enforcement and an intervention of local hotel owners; specific measures were suggested to minimize the problems at this place and weren't taken..." with the article's claim that sworn testimony by local law enforcement that, "the Tewksbury Police testified they never communicated with Caswell about what he could do to reduce drug crimes."

But be that as it may, if you care about civil liberties it is a fact that you'll mostly wind up defending unpopular actions by unpopular people who are unpopular for a reason. Because that is mostly who prosecutors are going to throw the book at, and go out of their way to target with every tool, ethical or not, that they can.

tptacek23• 14 years ago

That's because my claims come from the docket and the ones you cite come from a news article.

For the fourth time today: it is not my position that civil asset forfeiture reform isn't direly needed. But if you look at the process that actually occurred in this case, you'll find that this is very much not the textbook case of CAF abuse. This property was a real, practical problem for the community. The US Attorney's office used, in effect, a civil suit to resolve the problem after multiple local law enforcement interventions failed. That suit is receiving a full and fair hearing in front of an impartial judge.

Let me ask you directly: why do you think it should be illegal for the US Attorney's office to file a civil suit against the owners of a property that appears to be instrumental in the narcotics and vice trade of a whole township? If I slip and fall on your walkway, I can sue you. Why can't the government, here? They aren't threatening to imprison the owners. They're saying, "hey, owners, your operation of this business is so negligent and creates so many costs to the neighborhood that after multiple interventions with local law enforcement we're finally forced to sue".

rexreed6• 14 years ago

Here's the problem with what you're contending. Even if the facts are true, the issue has to do with the axe that the government wields here in disproportionate effect to those who are small and weak and not so against those who are stronger and have substantial resources:

From other articles [1] and [2]: "Dein asked Rao if it was the government's assertion that if a drug transaction takes place in the parking lot of McDonald's or Dunkin' Donuts, and the employees are aware of it and do nothing about it, the government could seize those businesses as part of the drug-forfeiture law.

Rao essentially said that was true. She responded, "The test is knowledge and reasonable steps to curb drug activity."

What makes it worse are the potentials for substantial and unstoppable abuse from the US government on forfeiture laws:

"Dein said she has "serious concerns" about the government's interpretation.

Institute for Justice attorneys argue the case is simply about money. The government stands to profit in the sale of the Caswell Motel, which is worth an estimated $1 million with no mortgage.

Under a process known as "equitable sharing," the federal government would keep 20 percent of what it nets from selling the land, and the Tewksbury Police Department would pocket 80 percent, while the Caswell family will lose its livelihood, the Institute for Justice alleges."

Bullock wrote that if the government wins, it would be a slippery slope.

"Accepting the government's theory of forfeiture would subject to forfeiture countless establishments that serve the general public simply because they are the site of occasional drug crime,'' Bullock wrote.

And to counter many of your claims above: "But during the trial, Caswell, 69, who lives on the property with his wife, Patricia, testified he was "surprised'' by the civil-forfeiture notice.

"I never had any warning," he said.

In nearly 30 years of operating the 57-year-old Motel Caswell, which was built by his father and supports his family, Caswell testified that he has never been fined, cited or arrested, never had his business permit pulled, and was never told he could be in trouble for any third-party drug activity at the motel."

Furthermore, to your contention that this one property is the source and cause of the issues:

"It belies this notion that the area's great and there's this one problem property, the Motel Caswell," said attorney Scott Bullock from the Institute for Justice, the Arlington, Va.-based libertarian law firm representing motel owner Russ Caswell. "That's not the case at all.

Bullock said that when the Institute for Justice first took on the Motel Caswell case in 2011, the team examined police logs and found the rate of arrests at the motel comparable to that of its neighbors. He said more recent statistics obtained by The Sun seem in line with those initial findings.

The numbers raise the question of why this one business was targeted under the seizure laws, Bullock said.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office did not respond to a request for comment Friday."

[1] http://www.lowellsun.com/todaysheadlines/ci_22253534/caswell... [2] http://www.lowellsun.com/todaysheadlines/ci_22365659/tewksbu...

tptacek23• 14 years ago

He had no warning of the civil asset forfeiture suit, until the suit was served on him. But he had numerous warnings about the problems with his property, from local business owners first, and then by the Tewksbury Police Department, and then in response to multiple major criminal incidents at his hotel (a meth lab was discovered; the government contends no policy changes resulted; multiple people died in rooms the hotel; the government contends no policy changes resulted; multiple retail drug operations were found in the hotel; the government contends no policy changes resulted). It's disingenuous in the extreme for this guy to pretend he's taken by surprise here.

It's possible to simultaneously believe that we should be concerned about the lack of restrictions on the use of civil asset forfeiture and and at the same time believe that the state should have some recourse in court for properties operated in the fashion of this motel.

frere• 14 years ago

Agreed. If we don't nip this abuse of power in the bud, it will only escalate. There are legit ways of solving problems and then there is this.

patrickgzill• 14 years ago

Why did this case ever go to a Federal case?

If the Tewksbury PD had knowledge, did they not also have the ability to give the info to a local county or state prosecutor? And if they knew and did nothing, either the community by way of the police chief give tacit approval, or, there is corruption somewhere.

erichocean7• 14 years ago

It went to trial because the local police department wants to net about $800K from seizing the land.

It went to federal trial because the feds have worked out a system where they'll take on all the legwork and trial expense for the local police, in exchange for 20% of the take ($200K in this case).

It's 100% about money, and 0% about reducing crime or prostitution (other properties nearby have identical crime rates, but aren't worth as much, so they're not targeted). Police departments use the money from civil forfeiture to pad their budgets. In some cities, the amount of money received each year from civil forfeiture is 3-5x that provided by taxpayers!

If you want to go wild with rage, spend some time reading up on the civil forfeiture laws and abuses. IMO there is no greater example of bad law and bad government today than civil forfeiture. I'm not alone in thinking so, either. It's that evil.

The US has enacted some truly bad laws in the last decade or so, but civil forfeiture is so far out in front as "worst law in widespread use" that is has no real competitors for the title.

gw2• 14 years ago

If you read Reason (to steal a line from you), you know that laws prohibiting narcotics and prostitution are unethical and cause both activities to be more dangerous by forcing them underground.

It is beyond the power of U.S. attorneys to legalize either activity, but they are not beyond blame for enforcing unethical laws, and it is clearly baseless to blame private business for not helping them do so.

tptacek23• 14 years ago

I do read reason. I think marijuana should be completely legalized and sold like liquor is. I think we may end up having to regulate narcotics instead of criminalizing them. I think total bans on prostitution don't make much sense.

But I also think that meth labs, street-level hand-to-hand narcotics trading, and street-level prostitution are illegal for good reason.

uptown• 14 years ago

"There are places like this all over America and they're all neighborhood blights that need to be shut down"

In NYC, it's the Hotel Carter:

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgBE1L8_WUs

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCQ8_LkkaW0

JohnsonB• 14 years ago

And realistically, what could the owners of the motel have done to curb illicit activity in their rooms? I mean specifically, what could they have done, that would have actually curbed abuse? What it boils down to, is that they can take all the security measures they want, but if someone can rent a room and do/sell drugs, prostitute, and leave no evidence behind, it's outside the purview of the owners, and realistically can't be stopped. This is a function of the neighborhood, not the motel owners.

hdctambien• 14 years ago

I'm no hotel policy expert, but I have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express before. If I owned this motel and actually wanted to reduce some of these problems here are some steps I would take:

1) Don't rent rooms by the hour: this reduced prostitution.

2) Only allow registered guests to enter the hotel further than the lobby: good bye "drug stores"

3) Work with other local businesses, the police, and community members to clean up the streets. Drugs and crime should be bad for business. Elect and work with politicians that will put more police on the streets. Maybe institute a curfew. Improve the schools. Create after school programs.

If I was being proactive at fighting the blight throughout my 30 years (and my fathers previous 29) then the government would not be taking away my Model... if anything I would be getting in trouble for what I would be doing to whoever attempted to run a meth lab out of my place of business and my home (Those things explode!)

paulsutter• 14 years ago

Note:

- 15 crimes over 14 years in which he rented 200,000 rooms, and

- he runs the risk of discrimination accusations if he refuses to rent a room.

What specific policies would you implement if you were managing this hotel that would have avoided 15 crimes in 200,000 room rentals? You're so confident this guy is negligent, show us how easy it is to avoid these problems.

trotsky2• 14 years ago

You make a good case that this fits within the bounds of an enemy target as far as the classic drug war goes.

I think we'd agree though that sans rundown hotel the drugs still would have been made, the people would have died, the cops would have had to arrest people.

Like it or not, the marginal people in the world need places to sleep, go to work, shout at aliens and watch law and order like everyone else. If the meth lab wasn't there then maybe the suburban rental down the street, or the dead junkie could have been in the room next to yours at the quality in that didn't have a huge warning on yelp that let you avoid it.

It's a decent part of the reason that a lot of cities have relatively well know open air drug markets in bad parts of town that don't get much static, or that the oakland pd mostly looked the other way at the large mostly illegal mega grows in the warehouse districts 10 years ago because they knew the alternative would just push them into residential neighborhoods and cause a lot more problems.

Minus the moral outrage and necessity of retribution, the guy was probably doing the rest of the hotels and the town a favor.

I mean that is unless you're arguing to generate enough new revenue so that we can spend drug war size money on top notch medical, pyschiatric, housing and supervision for a large chunk of marginalized people in this country.

jrockway• 14 years ago

Beyond that, I'm not sure HN is a great place to debate it.

Then why did you write a long comment rather than just flagging the article and moving on?

dpatru• 14 years ago

I don't understand why the list of reasons you gave support the idea that government should be able to just steal the hotel from its owner without first charging the owner of a crime.

> The hotel is, let's not sugarcoat it, a blighted flophouse. . . .

If the government wants to impose some standards on how a hotel should be run, it should publish laws to that effect and the penalties should something on the order of fines or loss of business license, not loss of the property.

> The owners of the hotel were warned repeatedly by local law enforcement and an intervention of local hotel owners; specific measures were suggested to minimize the problems at this place and weren't taken; the hotel had no security, and its drug countermeasures consisted of a list of persons not to rent to again.

It is not the duty of private citizens to act as an unpaid quasi-police force.

* The hotel owners made no policy changes after a methamphetamine lab was discovered in one of their rooms.

> The hotel owners made no changes after the dead body of a heroin overdose victim was found in one of their rooms.

Are they required by law to make changes?

> Drug deals weren't simply occurring at the hotel; the Tewskbury PD repeatedly discovered drug dealers operating full-time out of rooms in the hotel.

If and when police discover illegal activity, they are free to do their jobs and arrest people. It is not the hotel owners' job to act as a police force.

> The owners of the hotel repeatedly admitted under oath that they had continuing knowledge of drug crimes occurring on their premises, and had no policies to investigate the use of their rooms.

Knowledge that crimes have occurred in the past does not mean that the hotel owners had a duty to act as an unpaid police force.

tptacek23• 14 years ago

They're not stealing; they're suing.

gojomo• 14 years ago

If it's so easy for 'policy changes' to react to the lawlessness, why can't the police, with all their customary non-forfeiture tools (that are not available to a private actor), just crack down on this problem spot with due-cause searches and arrests? It's a honeypot!

I don't want innkeepers to be direct reporting agents of law enforcement agencies, or subject to a 100% asset tax when they don't meet law enforcement's demands (plus appear to be an easy profitable high-equity target).

skue• 14 years ago

You make it sound like these issues are unique to this one motel, when it comes with the business.

> * The hotel owners made no policy changes after a methamphetamine lab was discovered in one of their rooms.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Hotels-motels-hot-spots-f...

> * The hotel owners made no changes after the dead body of a heroin overdose victim was found in one of their rooms.

http://radaronline.com/exclusives/2012/06/murder-suicide-whi...

> * Drug deals weren't simply occurring at the hotel; the Tewskbury PD repeatedly discovered drug dealers operating full-time out of rooms in the hotel. / * The owners of the hotel repeatedly admitted under oath that they had continuing knowledge of drug crimes occurring on their premises, and had no policies to investigate the use of their rooms.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/dec/30/hard-rock-hotel-...

> * The hotel is, let's not sugarcoat it, a blighted flophouse... There are places like this all over American and they're all neighborhood blights that need to be shut down.

Ah, now we are getting somewhere, because this seems to be the primary complaint. If Charlie Sheen does cocaine in a luxury hotel room, that's all good fun. And it would be absurd to shut down the hotel because of what Sheen did, right? But a motel that serves poor people who are not celebrities -- yet nevertheless do drugs sometimes -- is entirely different.

This connects to the point that Orin Kerr and others have been making regarding the uproar over Aaron's death. "If you want to end these tactics, don’t just complain about the Swartz case. Don’t just complain when the defendant happens to be a brilliant guy who went to Stanford and hangs out with Larry Lessig. Instead, complain that this is business as usual in federal criminal cases around the country — mostly with defendants who no one has ever heard of and who get locked up for years without anyone else much caring."

lenkite• 14 years ago

Out of 280,000 room rentals over a period of 15 years, there were 15 cases of people with drugs.

If you believe grabbing property on that basis is justified, then, I am sorry to say sir that you are just a government shill who supports fascist forfeiture.

And apparently Caswell has had fewer crimes than other nearby addresses

http://forfeiturereform.com/2013/01/14/analysis-shows-fewer-...

downandout• 14 years ago

By this logic, the government should confiscate each and every casino in Las Vegas. People commit numerous crimes, then lose the proceeds in these casinos. In some cases, the crimes occur on property - people are staying there when, for example, they phone in an unauthorized wire transfer from a corporate account, sell drugs, or commit other crimes in order to obtain gambling money. They are profiting from and are the impetus for many fraud, embezzlement, robbery, and drug cases each year.

The casinos have no on-site fraud/embezzlement monitoring programs for the crimes that occur in their hotel rooms, despite numerous cases every year arising from their properties. Someone call the Nevada equivalent of Carmen Ortiz and get these multi-billion dollar businesses confiscated! (I'm being sarcastic, of course - this type of thing is insane and deplorable in a country like the US).

praptak2• 14 years ago

This quote made me stop: “As he describes his job, he looks through the newspapers and looks at the Internet, looking for news stories of properties that might be forfeitable and brings them to the attention of the U.S. attorney,” Caswell’s attorney, Larry Salzman, said.

According to the agent’s sworn testimony, he then goes to the Registry of Deeds to determine the value of the targeted property. The DEA rejects anything with less than $50,000 equity."

Ouch. I knew about the US forfeiture laws but this still managed to surprise me. The agents seem to have left any connection with justice and are pretty open about their real goal: grabbing money.

nonamegiven• 14 years ago

So he's a real estate agent then?

praptak2• 14 years ago

Ba-dum tsss. But seriously, suppose that this agency needs a new office. What stops them from finding some nice buildings, link them to owners and investigate them just in case? They would be doing their jobs, with the potential bonus of a free office. A true real estate agency.

Yeah, false slippery slope and all but is it really a false one?

btilly3• 14 years ago

It is wonderful that these stories are coming up.

But is there a wiki somewhere that is tracking these so that when people go and look at Ortiz in more detail, we've got a quick way of educating them?

thinkcomp2• 14 years ago

I think PlainSite is probably the closest thing. It lets you tag cases (if you sign up) and search by attorney or legal entity.

http://www.plainsite.org

unreal37• 14 years ago

This story is outrageous. Outrageous. 14 crimes have occurred there in 15 years... And the government just wants to seize $1.5 million worth of property and keep the proceeds. That is itself a crime.

It's not the hotel owners job to do the job of the police. I don't want to check into a hotel and have them check my police record, ask if I am planning to have visitors, scan my luggage in a metal detector to see if I am carrying anything suspicious or illegal. Not their job.

If they see a crime occurring or something suspicious, call it in. Fine. But to hold private business owners responsible for the conduct of their customers? Ridiculous.

tptacek23• 14 years ago

I think you are probably misinformed about the history of this property. The directly cited criminal cases in the evidence for the property spans a 7 page bulleted wall of text. Multiple people died there. They found meth labs there. On multiple separate engagements, retail drug operations were found running out of rooms in the property. And that's just the drug crimes.

The government can't just "seize" the property. They're suing the property in civil court. For what appears to be very good reason. The whole thing is receiving a full hearing in front of an impartial judge.

petegrif• 14 years ago

Sounds to me to be exactly the kind of property a town needs. Get all that bad shit in one place so the police don't have to work finding the perps. Just station some agents in the hotel and go fishing.

sgfc• 14 years ago

I have been following this case for quite some time. I think it is worth noting that the defence lawyers[1] are a pro bono libertarian law firm, initially funded by the Koch brothers, that strategically litigates media friendly cases. It has been said that "In pursuit of its goal of a radical laissez-faire capitalism, the Institute has initiated a number of lawsuits aimed at ending government regulation of business. While the lawsuits generally involve small businesses, often in communities of color, the goal is to set a legal precedent for the deregulation of big business in general."[2]

As a bit of silly trivia, in the movie "Invention of Lying" Ricky Gervais' character had a quicky fling set there where it was named "A Cheap Motel for Intercourse with a Near Stranger".

[1] http://www.ij.org/massachusetts-civil-forfeiture [2] http://my.execpc.com/~ajrc/ifj.html [3] http://www.futuregamez.net/movies/inventionoflying/invention...

jmcguckin3• 14 years ago

If someone wants to demonize an organization they don't like, it's popular to accuse them of having ties to the Koch brothers.

Well, here's some other (obviously evil) organizations funded by the Kochs:

  - ACLU
  - MIT
  - NYC Ballet
  - American Museum of Natural History
  - PBS
  - Lincoln Center

erichocean7• 14 years ago

Dude, you're hurting the narrative. Not cool.

trotsky2• 14 years ago

I usually don't go in for commenting about the drug war because it's dumb and i'm over preaching to the converted. But I couldn't resist sidestepping the obvious revenue issue here and note that on any number of occasions I've stayed at perfectly straight hotels presumably run by upstanding members of the community that almost without a doubt had more than 15 felony drug offenses occurring just on that day!

If your standards can include 9 years of traffic and a baker's dozen of issues it seems like a vast majority of lodging would be in danger of a zealous prosecutor.

Now I'm sure this guy has in some way separated himself out in the states attorney's mind as compared to the usual econolodge, but that's faint comfort. Working for a time with federal investigators it became clear that pretty much 100% of the population is guilty of something if you're looking, usually something that can be finessed into a no joke federal rap.

It's very unusual that it ever becomes an issue - but you get the right combination of attention, timing and bad luck or malice and then suddenly your world turns upside down. It seems like this happens really often when you're a target or related to an investigation, they put together what they think is a solid case only to find out whoops they got it wrong you're obviously not their guy. At that point god help you if you're stealing cable or borrowing your brother's wifi or were growing a tiny pot plant in the basement.

I wonder what even the theoretical justification for something like this would be. If we seize the hotel then those junkies will stop shooting heroin because they cant get a chill hotel room in town?

niels_olson• 14 years ago

This seems like the physical equivalent of mega.co.nz, a "dangerous property".

The owner may be upstanding, but the people we expect to protect us (the gov't) see it as a nest of thieves, regardless of who owns it. But if that were illegal, it seems to me Vegas would have been plowed under a long time ago.

arbuge• 14 years ago

Seems to me the whole gang in the Boston DA office need to go, starting from Ortiz and working swiftly all the way down.

Thomas Jefferson - "A government afraid of its citizens is a democracy. Citizens afraid of government is tyranny."

chris_wot4• 14 years ago

It occurs to me that Ortiz is having a spotlight done upon her office. She finally went too far, now people are questioning her actions.

Transparency's a bitch.

alan_cx• 14 years ago

Are government buildings at risk when elected officials commit crime in them?

aneth4• 14 years ago

Civil forfeiture laws are the scariest government threat to American freedoms and rights.

Unfortunately they have been upheld by the Supreme Court. And oddly, the freedom touting Republicans have traditionally supported these laws as they are "tough in crime."

Another Ortiz case

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