Drug dealers may get seized property back

"Money Mike" Ricco is serving 30 years in federal prison for using a music business to run powdered cocaine through Bristol, Va.

Now local police might owe him money.

When busted on April 7, 1993, investigators confiscated drugs and cars from Ricco, and pried from his pockets the cash a snitch used for the drug-buy sting, plus the sum of $532.

Bristol Virginia Police could have spent Ricco’s personal cash on a bullet-proof vest, to pay snitches or even partially fund anti-drug programs in schools. Instead, the convict might see his cash again simply because the city commonwealth’s attorney’s office never took the legal steps to transfer ownership of the cash to police, court files show.

Forfeiture Facts

Frozen assets

$22,461 in cash now locked in the Bristol Virginia Police Department’s evidence safe.

It includes:

-- $1,000 seized two years ago from a man now serving 10 years in a federal prison.

-- $4,659 confiscated three years ago from a man serving a life term.

$124,943 in cash lingers in evidence rooms and government bank accounts in the Virginia counties of Washington, Russell, Scott, Wise, Buchanan and Tazewell, and the town of Richlands.

It includes:

-- $1,353 to be returned with interest by the Russell County Sheriff’s Office to a convicted drug user and three former suspects.

-- $1,595 from a case stalled so long that court clerks purged it from the docket. The rightful owner can have it returned.

Other seizures include:

-- $3,410 worth of guns, cell phones, stereos and other property also packed into the region’s evidence rooms.

-- $20,148 in cash and property has been forfeited by a judge to the Tazewell Sheriff’s Office, yet paperwork has not been mailed to finalize ownership. These cases date back to August 1999.

-- 34 cars, trucks and boats valued at $116,915 that have rusted for years in impound yards in Bristol Virginia, Richlands and the counties of Washington, Russell, Tazewell, Buchanan and Scott.

E.W. "Money Mike" Ricco

Prosecutors once considered returning his $523 to relatives, living somewhere in New York, but couldn’t find them, police report.

A judge then could have been asked to default the money to police, but prosecutors never pursued that avenue, court records show.

New Buchanan County, Va., prosecutor Tamara Neo discovered 15 stalled cases when taking over the office in January.

They include:

-- $13,000 in cash seized in November 2005.

-- A $14,000 Dodge truck seized in January 2006.

In fact, shoddy case management and legal slipups by some area prosecutors have blocked Southwest Virginia authorities from using $245,268 in cash and property seized from convicted and suspected drug runners over the past 15 years, a Herald Courier investigation found.

The newspaper reviewed more than 460 federal and local court files dealing with Virginia’s drug asset forfeiture law. The law allows police and prosecutors to keep most of what is seized in drug busts – but only if prosecutors stay on top of the cases.

Lackadaisical attitudes of current and former prosecutors already have allowed high-dollar forfeiture cases to stall for so long in regional courts that the property could revert to the former owners.

Some, like "Money Mike" Ricco, are still in jail, while others have served their sentences and are free. They can reclaim their losses if police can’t claim the money first.

The stalled forfeiture cases, which are handled in civil court, have been in limbo for at least two years, just enough inactivity for Virginia court clerks to purge them from court dockets when cleaning house.

"Without really pointing a finger ... my understanding [is] that if it’s stalled, then [the prosecutor’s office is] where it’s stalled at," said Dana G. Schrad, executive director of the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police.

More than a decade ago, the Bristol, Va., commonwealth’s attorney’s office convinced city police officials that Ricco’s money was theirs. Yet the paperwork transferring ownership to police is not in court files. Instead, files show that the case lingered untouched for so long that it was purged in 2002. That is why police, trying to answer Herald Courier queries, have scrambled to find records proving the money is legally theirs.

"What I can’t track is how did we get word that [the money] was to go into a forfeited account," city police Maj. Gregory Baker said.

Bristol, Va., police aren’t the only officers who fear drug runners and suspects will see their cash again. The Russell County Sheriff’s Office, after learning it had forgotten cash and property, is in the process of returning it to former owners, Sheriff Steven Dye stated by e-mail. He also is finishing the paperwork for goods he did not know the office owns.

"This is a problem statewide – court information not getting to the police so they can do what they’ve got to do," said Deborah Turck, asset forfeiture coordinator for the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services, which audits and redistributes confiscations to law enforcement agencies.

More money could drop out of sight unless the Virginia General Assembly streamlines the process, prosecutors and police say. But for now, there are no plans to change the law.

"I haven’t heard anything. That indicated to me that there’s not a lot of angst about it," said Virginia Delegate H. Morgan Griffith, R- Salem, a member of the House Militias, Police and Public Safety Committee.

In the dark

Cash totaling $22,463 from 17 active but aging cases crams the evidence safe at the Bristol Police Department. The cases, while not at a stall, could have been closed by now.

More seized cash lingers in evidence rooms and government bank accounts in Bristol, Va., the Virginia counties of Washington, Russell, Scott, Wise, Buchanan and Tazewell, and in the towns of Richlands and Saltville.

Why these cases remain open and untouched is a mystery area prosecutors could not explain.

Also unknown is whether any of the former owners realize their cases remain open and that their money and property could be up for grabs. None of the drug dealers and suspects returned telephone calls for comment.

"People have a right to have cases closed in one way or another," said Virginia forfeiture expert and Alexandria Commonwealth’s Attorney Elliott Casey.

In all, the Southwest Virginia region has $902,547 worth of pending drug-confiscation cases. Most are recent and plodding along in plain view of prosecutors, police and the former owners. The Herald Courier excluded these cases from its review, scrutinizing only those – nearly $250,000 worth – abandoned without legitimate reasons.

Most prosecutorial staffs and law enforcement agencies contacted for this article shoveled through aging files so they could explain why cases remained open on the backburner. Their digging confirmed the existence of many forgotten treasures.

Bristol Commonwealth’s Attorney Jerry Wolfe, who city police depend on to win the cash, ignored Herald Courier queries about the 17 cases locked in the police vault.

During an interview in mid-March, Wolfe said he could not comment specifically about ongoing criminal cases and forfeitures. When told that most of the criminal cases in question were closed, he agreed to look into three specific pending cases where property and cash were seized more than two years ago from owners never charged with a crime.

Although rare, property tied to drugs can be confiscated in Virginia even if the case never goes to trial. To keep the property, a civil court judge must be convinced of a drug link; in those courts, standards of proof are less stringent than in criminal proceedings.

Wolfe failed to call back and has not returned nearly a dozen follow-up calls for comment. He is the only one of eight current area prosecutors sought for comment on pending and questionable cases who did not return follow-up calls.

Bristol police, when initially tracking dormant cash at the newspaper’s request in early April, called Wolfe to learn the status of these and other untouched cases.

"He said they were on his to-do list," Baker, the police major, said. "That’s all we can do, is wait for the commonwealth’s attorney’s office."

Breakdown of a slipup

"Money Mike" Ricco’s cash has collected interest in a bank account through the terms of three city prosecutors. The Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Ind., where Ricco is arguing for a reduced sentence, denied the newspaper’s request to interview the drug dealer on the grounds it would "jeopardize security and disturb the orderly running of the institution."

Ricco’s case began with former Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert B. Dickert, resurfaced when Larry Kirksey, now a circuit court judge, took over the office, and is now with Wolfe, the city’s current top prosecutor.

Calls to Kirksey were returned by his secretary, who referred questions to Wolfe, who continued to ignore queries. Dickert has not returned calls to his home and office.

Ricco had $823 on him when arrested, state records note. After researching the case at the newspaper’s request, police now say $300 of it was cash supplied to an undercover informant who bought drugs from Ricco. The $300 stayed with police, while the rest was tossed in the city’s bank account for safekeeping until the forfeiture was official.

Investigators claimed ownership of Ricco’s confiscated 1984 Nissan 300ZX, though a judge-signed forfeiture order, which would give them legal ownership, could not be found.

Ricco might have signed over the car to police, as was the case with the $4,800 investigators found on an accomplice. She claimed the cash was not hers and signed a contract transferring ownership to investigators, police report.

Dickert, then the assistant city prosecutor, passed Ricco’s criminal charges to federal prosecutors but kept the forfeiture case. The move could have put Ricco’s cash in police hands. Instead, it languished on the court docket without much activity on Dickert’s part, records show, even after warnings of an impending purge.

Ricco, according to handwritten letters from prison in the court file, demanded that the money be returned, though records do not indicate a court appearance being scheduled so a judge could consider his claim.

A deposit slip in police records shows the $523 was transferred from the evidence locker into the city’s bank account on Jan. 27, 1995. Yet police cannot find a judge-signed forfeiture order giving them the money. All they have is a memo from the commonwealth’s attorney’s office that indicates the money is theirs, but fails to explain why or how, the DCJS reports.

The purge warnings continued when Kirksey inherited the case, years after police received the memo.

At one point, Kirksey sent the court a letter requesting more time while his office was "determining the availability of witnesses and advisability of proceeding further on the forfeiture."

Kirksey took no further action, case files show.

Wolfe, now in control of the case, has not revived it, court records show. It remains on the purge list and is up for grabs by either Ricco or Bristol police, who concede they can’t prove the money is rightfully theirs and might have to return it to Ricco.

"This is a mystery case, for some reason, all the way around," said Turck, DCJS forfeiture coordinator.

Revamping leads to inherited gridlock

Nearly $49.2 million has poured into Virginia law agencies since state legislators revamped forfeiture laws nearly 16 years ago, DCJS records show. Statewide, that translates into annual returns of nearly $3.08 million on the investment in the drug war.

Southwest Virginia boasts $919,430 collected in those 16 years.

Initially, police made nothing from Virginia’s forfeiture system because it funneled the spoils to public schools via the Literary Fund. So, police preferred to work with the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Agency on cases because those agencies share portions of anything confiscated.

Federal courts often get the money quicker because forfeiture business is taken care of in criminal proceedings by demanding it in the grand jury indictment.

Because no one wanted to contribute to a Literary Fund that gave nothing back to investigators, the fund claimed less than $150,221 in drug confiscations annually, according to a 1989 Virginia State Crime Commission report.

"Nothing good came of [Virginia’s drug seizure law] and the only people that made any money off it were the people who owned the places where the [confiscated] vehicles were stored," said state Sen. William Roscoe Reynolds, who as a state delegate during the study helped spearhead changes in the forfeiture law.

Before becoming a state delegate, Reynolds was Henry County’s lead prosecutor from 1969 through 1985, a job that garnered him expertise with the red tape and other problems with the forfeiture law.

"It was a nightmare," he said.

As much as police preferred teaming up with federal agencies, however, it happened almost as seldom as contributions to the Literary Fund, the crime commission reported.

By 1988, the Bristol Police Department was the only Southwest Virginia agency to have teamed with federal authorities on a drug investigation in four years. Officers confiscated a 1979 Cadillac valued at $3,775. Reports fail to indicate whether the FBI sold the car, and if so, shared any of the proceeds with Bristol police.

One unforeseen drawback of the forfeiture overhaul is gridlock that can be passed from one prosecutorial administration to the next – tying up money for years.

Prosecutor Tamara Neo discovered $66,512 worth of stalled cases when she took over the Buchanan County commonwealth’s attorney’s office in January.

Breathing new life into those cases, some abandoned since 2002, was among Neo’s first acts as prosecutor. All the pending cases will appear in court next month.

"I never added them [the value] up," Neo said. "I just wanted to clean house."

Neo’s predecessor, Sheila Tolliver, who is best known for prosecuting Peter Odighizuwa for fatally shooting three people at Grundy’s Appalachian School of Law in 2002, did not return Herald Courier phone calls to her private practice.

Also hoping to clean house is Richlands Police Chief William Puckett, who has struggled since last year to push along his $76,831 in stalled cases.

"We’re really trying to get rid of this stuff. It’s a real thorn in our side," he said. "We can only store and keep and handle so much."

Worth the wait, but for who?

None of the nearly dozen former property owners sought for an interview returned calls. Few of the former defense attorneys sought for comment returned calls and those who did said the cases in question happened so long ago they could not remember specifics.

So it remains unknown whether any former owners of confiscated property realize the ironic twist of accounting fate occurring if their cash remains overlooked in an interest-bearing account instead of a police safe.

For example, the $523 confiscated from Ricco, based on the interest rate when seized, should have doubled by now in the Bristol city account.

Bristol Police does not have a written policy dictating whether Ricco would get the interest on his money if it is returned, Maj. Baker said.

Interest appears in the state forfeiture law only under an OK for police to deposit cash into an interest-bearing account and to keep the interest if desired.

State law leaves the decision of who gets the interest to the locality. Some localities keep it when returning seized funds. Most, including the Russell County Sheriff’s Office, hand it over simply to avoid a lawsuit.

Last year, DCJS Forfeiture Coordinator Turck tried convincing lawmakers to draft a statute to end the interest issue. She failed.

"I learned not to try it in a budget year," she said.

As for the boon such interest could mean to law enforcement, few officers likely know whether their accounts include any aging cash. Bristol Police had trouble answering the Herald Courier’s inquiry into the whereabouts of cash confiscated more than a decade ago. Officers had to dredge paperwork from storage to verify the cash’s origins and whether it remained in the evidence room or a bank account.

The irony is more unfortunate when it comes to the 34 cars, trucks and boats rusting under the sun in impound yards on the Virginia side of Bristol and the counties of Washington, Scott, Tazewell, Buchanan and Russell. These forgotten relics have a total estimated value of $116,915 – nearly half the total value mentioned at this article’s outset.

In all cases, values are estimated when the car rolls into the impound yard. They are either sold at government auctions or incorporated into the department’s fleet.

But Richlands Police Chief Puckett wonders if the 2000 Chevrolet Cavalier seized two years ago will sell for its $4,000 estimated value. Or whether it’s a stretch to believe the 1984 Chevrolet pickup confiscated four years ago will fetch $3,700.

"But now, since it sat there for a period of time and deteriorated, now what do we have?" he said in general of the region’s long-held vehicles. "Probably, the biggest thing we can do is sell that thing for salvage since it’s deteriorated so badly."

mowens@bristolnews.com (276) 645-2549