Every case like this needs to be published fare & wide, and there needs to be a huge public outcry & demand for an end to the drug war, which has been the fertile ground out of which we have grown our domestic Gestapo.

"The DEA set the U.S. attorney into motion. It has a special agent here in Boston who seeks out targets for forfeiture.

"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.

In the case of the Caswell, the agent saw its worth close to $1.5 million with no mortgage. That made it a fat target for the U.S. attorney, says another of Caswell’s lawyers, Scott Bullock.

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

Over 14,000 room nights over the years in question. Free rooms provided to police for sting operations and investigations. A handful of arrests.

Stealing, plain and simple. It's not the first time I've seen local governments steal property from individuals in Massachusetts.

A couple years before I left that hellhole of a state, a woman who was a national champion trainer in the quarterhorse world had her horses, valued at over $250K, stolen by the state's animal control. Her problems started with a new neighbor who moved in from the city and didn't want horses next door. He reported her for "starving" a horse: she had just purchased and shipped the horse 3,000+ miles cross-country. It arrived thin, which sometimes happens due to the trip. The sellers may not have been feeding the horse well once he was sold; that sometimes happens too. Not her fault, the horse was shipped legally and all her other horses were in show condition, but now the state was watching her and waiting. Some time later, her husband was dying of cancer. She pulled her horses out of training and kept them on a straight hay diet while she cared for her husband. Normal and correct care for horses that aren't working to take them off a working diet and feed straight hay.

On the day of her husband's funeral, without warning or notice, the state seized her horses. While she was burying her husband, they came onto her property with a bunch of volunteers with trailers...and took the horses. Instead of following the law and taking them to the state facility, they hid them at various "volunteer" farms. They refused to allow her veterinarian see them to testify on her behalf. She had no money or fight left. Last I heard, she gave up, sold her farm and left. I hope she sold it to a goddam pig farmer. It would serve the jerkoff neighbor right.

I've stayed in "budget" motels before where I was unable to sleep because people kept banging on my door or an adjacent room's door all night looking for dope or some other nefarious "service." I would try to contact the manager who, of course, was never around. I came to the conclusion that the manager/owner was likely in on the action or, at least, condoned it because of his unwillingness to just kick out the troublemakers.

I'd instruct the bank to reverse the credit card charges and then write to the motel owner inviting them to sue me, telling them I was just giddy at the prospect of describing my experience in a public court. None ever took me up on my offer.

This sounds like the same kind of deal. If this "Russ Caswell" guy isn't interested in cleaning up his clientele by kicking them out, he's part of the problem and should lose his "blight on society."

Like I said, the owner is the problem. Society would be better served by a bulldozed lot than what he's running out of there.

you don't take people's property without due process.

that's totalitarianism. but if you think it's ok, well...

As posted by someone else:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g41863-d1124170-Reviews-Motel_Caswell-Tewksbury_Massachusetts.html

It's not "totalitarianism." It's a community ridding itself of a menace.

he was coerced into keeping quiet? Or perhaps he was afraid to call police or otherwise "cleaning up his clientele by kicking them out", fearing retribution.

Yes, a man who cowers behind his desk "afraid to call the police" is just the guy to run a "cheap motel."

As others have indicated, he wouldn't have even had to use a phone to "call the police." They apparently spend quite a bit of their time in his parking lot trying to clean up the problem he is fostering.

Your sympathy is being wasted on this ne'er-do-well.

From tripadvisor: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g41863-d1124170-Reviews-Motel_Caswell-Tewksbury_Massachusetts.html




“ROOMS BY THE HOUR”
1 of 5 stars Reviewed January 7, 2012 via mobile


Hookers, Drug Addicts, Drug Dealers Need I Say More?!. Dirty, Disgusting & Old! Do Not Stay Here!!!!!
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SpeedyTiger
Melbourne

Reviews in 3 cities Reviews in 3 cities
5 helpful votes 5 helpful votes
“Out of desparation.”
1 of 5 stars Reviewed November 11, 2011


After missing our exit from the Freeway, we were so frazzled (& everybody over there seems to drive on the wrong side of the road & all the car steering wheels are on the wrong side of the car) we decided to stop at the first motel we came across. OH DEAR - NOT A GREAT CHOICE. Firstly, there seems... More

sdkfhvlskjdbvhf00025
Lowell, Massachusetts

“Green truck, fat lady... Fire her now!!!”
1 of 5 stars Reviewed September 30, 2011


This hotel absolutely sucks seriously!!!! Over $1000 a month for one room and one bed, the shower doesn't work properly, the bathroom light hates to come on and there was cigarette burns all over the sheets and blankets (thank god we had our own)... I mean come on now really??? Treated veterans with utmost disrespect and terrible manners. Seriously the... More
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Eggie617

“This motel caswell should really be called Joe's Apartment.”
1 of 5 stars Reviewed March 2, 2011 via mobile

First of all Nothing was clean, there were no towells, no soap, the shower not only was shooting out in ever direction but the water was brown Yes, BROWN!!!! This place should be shut down it even has spider webs up to ying yang and little roaches and crackheads surround the whole place I would never ever recommend this motel... More
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localstayinglocal
Lowell, Massachusetts

“You get what you pay for”
2 of 5 stars Reviewed February 2, 2011


Stayed on a quiet night. No remote to the TV, which was stuck tinted green. No alarm clock, no internet, several holes in walls, decaying furniture. A solid reputation for drug and prostitution activity with regular police patrols. It was, however, really cheap.
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VARay2009
VA

“Bed bugs”
1 of 5 stars Reviewed October 21, 2009


Lots of bug bites overnight. All rooms are placarded non-smoking, but are supplied with ashtrays, so they're heavy with fresh smoke smell anyway. Walls are probably only as thick as the paneling you see, cause you can hear very well next door. Local police are often milling about, running checks on cars in the lot.

Last edited Fri Nov 23, 2012, 04:26 PM - Edit history (1)

because this motel sounds like a horror - based on the reviews. Bed bugs?!? Aaaaah . . .!

of why. It sounds like one is a blight on the neighborhood.

This particular piece of property, however, should probably have been shut down due to health violations many years ago rather than this particular issue.

Unfortunately, decades of bath-tub sized government has allowed a lot of crap like this to go on.

I sure hope they don't try to shut down that chain of hotels!

Romney help us all.

or some drug dealer's grandma who lives on a $600/mo gov't check and owns a miserable little house in the ghetto, her only possession after a lifetime of work.

Gives them an incentive to police for profit, not public safety.

Distorts law enforcement priorities.

Activist organization: Forfeiture Endangers American Rights (FEAR) www.fear.org

One would think that as stories like these accumulate it would drop. Particularly among the younger generation that doesn't equate pot with "godless hippies that cost us the War!"

Who is behind this?

It really is getting out of hand.

Forfeiture laws require tacit approval of drug dealing.

per the article?

my idea of 'known about it & ignored it' is that there's some kind of trial process, with evidence.

doesn't happen.

Ok...where I live the state cannot take someone's property without a hearing. I cannot vouche for all states.

The Supreme Court heard arguments today in a case about the extent to which police can seize property connected to drug crimes without offering any procedure for owners to contest the seizure.

The scenario of concern in the case happens across the U.S. Police, while investigating or making arrests in a drug case, seize property that may be connected to the case, like cars. What happens next depends on state law, but in many places, property owners go months or even years without their property, even when no charges are filed against them.

In his brief summary of the case before the Supreme Court (Alvarez v. Smith), George Mason law professor Ilya Somin points out how state seizure laws can threaten innocent property owners whose car or other property gets swept up in the War on Drugs. In Illinois, state law offers no procedure to challenge the seizure, and requires no proof from police that seizure is necessary to preserve evidence.

http://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2009/10/property-seizure-in-the-war-on-drugs.html

case was alvarez v. smith, & the sc declared it moot by the time the case reached them as there was no longer a property dispute.

but there are lots of such cases of property seizure without due process or even a clear/speedy appeals process.

Forfeiture without due process

VICTOR RAMOS GUZMAN and his brother-in-law noticed a Virginia state trooper pull up beside them as they traveled on Interstate 95 near Emporia, Va., in November. “A police car drove by in parallel, looked at our faces and on no more than that decided to stop us,” Mr. Guzman said in a sworn affidavit.

Virginia State Police say the men were speeding, driving 86 mph in a 70 mph zone and “following too closely.” But the trooper did not issue a ticket that morning despite the allegedly excessive speed nor did he charge the men with any civil or criminal violations. He did, however, seize $28,500 in cash.

The episode sheds light on the troubling nature of forfeiture laws that are used to seize money and property without evidence that a crime has been committed. These laws are aggressively enforced in part because police organizations are often allowed to keep the proceeds.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/forfeiture-without-due-process/2011/12/22/gIQAckn3WP_story.html

fun reading.

$$CHUG$$-$$CHUG$$$-$$$$CHUGGIN$$$ ALONG!