Filling Uncle Sam's Auction House

By Richard N. Ostling

ATTENTION BUYERS! Brand-new shipment just in. Unusual opportunity. Our best consignment ever. $20 million worth of choice Florida properties: sun-coast condos, apartment complexes and, the jewel of the lot, a one-of-a-kind Thoroughbred- and show-horse ranch with 14 rare Paso Finos, prized for their steady ride and high-stepping gait. All offerings are in good shape, previously owned by suspected drug kingpins. (They buy the best.) A steal. Remember our motto at Uncle Sam's: We seize from the sleaze. Their loss is America's gain.

The Government may not hawk goods like a job-lot auction house, but it is becoming quite a bargain hunter. Across the U.S., law-enforcement officials are enthusiastically confiscating property acquired through criminal activity or used in committing crimes. Such seizures have become a major police weapon for squeezing crooks, especially drug dealers. During fiscal 1986, federal marshals handled $550 million in confiscated cash and property under 130 laws, a fivefold increase since 1981.

The glitziest grab yet was the horse ranch and other Florida real estate seized last week by Government agents. The U.S. expects to sell off the booty as soon as a judge is persuaded that each property was bought, as the Government charges, with narcotics profits traced to three reputed Colombian drug chieftains. Besides horses and real estate, agents in other cases have grabbed a surplus Navy bomber, a $25,000 gold-plated motorcycle, high-speed motorboats, a marina, a topless bar and a pair of Atlanta rib restaurants. Businesses are often temporarily run under Government auspices until confiscation proceedings are completed.

Three weeks ago the U.S. made its largest sale ever of a single confiscated item -- a red 1963 Ferrari racer, one of only 32 of the special twelve- cylinder model in existence. Federal prosecutors claimed that a slain narcotics smuggler bought the Ferrari with drug proceeds ($345,000 in cash carried in a knapsack). He subsequently gave the car to a Connecticut mechanic for services rendered. The feds seized the car and, when the mechanic was unable to prove that he had no reason to suspect a crime connection, agreed to give him a mere $135,000 as a settlement. A Rhode Island auto dealer is paying $1.6 million for the car.

"It's really getting to be scary," complains Defense Attorney Tom Nolan of Palo Alto, Calif. "We're going back to 16th and 17th century Britain, where if you committed a crime you forfeited your property." Possessions used in committing certain federal crimes, a car for example, have long been subject to seizure. Since 1970, however, Congress has also allowed confiscation of the proceeds of some crimes under half a dozen major federal crimebusting statutes. Business began booming after a 1984 law provided for seizure of crime-related assets even if they have been sold or transferred. Moreover, money from the sale of goods has given federal and local agencies an extra incentive for confiscations.

Defense lawyers are alarmed. In criminal trials the Government must always prove guilt, but in many confiscation proceedings the burden of proof falls on the person who wants to reclaim his goods. The thorniest disputes involve prosecutors' efforts to seize lawyers' fees when the defendant's money has come from illicit profits. The Justice Department claims it uses the fee gambit only in clear cases, but a spokesman for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers charges, "A lot of people can't get a lawyer of their choice, and many can't get a lawyer at all." Civil libertarians say fee forfeitures undermine a defendant's right to legal representation.

Certainly it can make mounting a defense harder. The notorious Carlos Lehder Rivas, said to be a leader of the Colombian cartel involved in last week's ranch seizure, had to scour southern Florida to find a lawyer willing to represent him in his current Jacksonville trial. His attorneys signed on only after he provided solid proof that they would be paid with untainted -- and unconfiscable -- money.

With reporting by Anne Constable/Washington and Joyce Leviton/Atlanta