I am middle aged.  I have worked hard all my life and saved as much as I could for retirement and my daughter's education and well-being.  I taught Sunday school to Kindergarten and 1st graders.  I vote in every election and I pay my taxes.  I have never committed a crime nor did I pose a threat to national security.  My 8 year old daughter was secure in her home with a bright future.  She never committed a crime nor posed a threat to national security.  My middle aged electrical engineer husband never committed a crime nor did he pose a threat to national security.

Special Agent Arran McWhirter and Assistant United States Attorney Michele Korver planned and executed an attack on our family not to fight crime or to prevent a terrorist attack, but out of sheer greed and ambition.  AUSA Korver ignored the FinCEN's ruling that investors are users and don't need business licenses.  She used a statute modified by martial law (Patriot Act) to launch her assaults on the Bitcoin world because of the secrecy it gave her.

Despite the lack of actual evidence, the United States refused to dismiss the spurious charges against my husband unless our family forfeited $80,000 to the Federal Asset Forfeiture Fund.  SA Arran McWhirter and AUSA Michele Korver are the poster children for corrupt government officials.  They overstate their cases and exaggerate evidence to use anti-terrorists laws to steal from law-abiding U.S. citizens.

Civil forfeiture laws have no place in a democratic society.  Civil forfeiture does not deter criminals.  All it does is corrupt law enforcement and the judicial system.

A discussion of when civil forfeiture laws should be used in a drug case involving parents and their adult child in PA misses the point.  Civil forfeiture should never be used.  Civil forfeiture harms parents, husbands, wives, children, businesses and the community in which it is used.

Criminal forfeiture occurs only when a person is convicted of a crime.  Only upon conviction or a guilty plea can the government seize assets that are the result of the underlying crime.  Those assets are supposed to be used for victim reparation.  There is a logical reason for criminal forfeiture.  It returns money to victims.

Civil forfeiture is out and out theft by the government.  The money goes directly to law enforcement and bypasses the constitutional checks and balances of our government and is individual taxation without representation.  

Wild speculation and conjecture have no place in this thread.  

My now 9 year old daughter has been irreparably harmed by the actions of S.A. Arran McWhirter and AUSA Michele Korver.  She had to undergo counseling.  Her doctor has to prescribe sleep aids.  She has lost her education fund.  She is scared of the government and law enforcement.  Her money was taken and her toys broken.  She has lost her sense of security.  She didn't deserve that.

My life savings is gone and my money taken.  I didn't deserve that.

Our friend and two of our relatives had items that were taken from our house which we had to fight get back.

Our thirty year old business was slandered and financially harmed.  Because our business was defamed to our client's customer, our client also lost business and recently closed its doors.  Two companies financially harmed because of the government's greed.

Do not lend credence to the belief that civil forfeiture is ever acceptable.  It is imperative that people everywhere speak out against civil forfeiture in all cases.  It is imperative that everyone understands that people never charged with a crime are always harmed by civil forfeiture.  You cannot execute civil forfeiture without harming persons besides the individual charged.  In fact, civil forfeiture is often executed without charges ever being brought.  We fought the American Revolutionary War over this behavior by the British. It wasn't acceptable then and it is not acceptable now.

Also, because a person is charged with a crime doesn't mean that person is guilty.  No action should be taken against property just on the word of law enforcement.  There should always be due process, notice and a hearing before an impartial judge, BEFORE property is seized.  In this country, our rule of law dictates that punishment should never be cruel or unusual.  What happened to my husband was cruel and unusual punishment; there is no other way to describe three days in solitary confinement over the bogus charge of failure to complete the proper paperwork.  Taking a house over a small drug deal in PA is cruel and unusual punishment.  Having to spend thousands of dollars to get back property which never should have been seized in the first place constitutes an unconstitutional deprivation and taking of property.  I don't care what the 9 Political Puppets wearing black robes in DC say.  Every attorney and every true American knows civil forfeiture is unconstitutional and anti-American at its core.

It's time people stopped adding to the noise.  Discuss how to end civil forfeiture.  Discuss how to stop abuses by law enforcement and federal prosecutors.  But please, in this thread, never discuss that civil forfeiture may be appropriate in certain circumstances.  

My family of three survived and battled an assault by the United States Government.  It cost us our life savings, our belief in our country, our sense of security, but it did not rob us of the American spirit or our belief in the U.S. Constitution.  We now know the true enemy to our civil liberties and our country -- the true enemy lies within and it is people like Michele Korver in the United State Justice Department and agents like Arran McWhirter in the Department of Homeland Security.