Search Results for: forfeiture

Articles

  Twice each month, Michael Lowe publishes a new in-depth article on DallasJustice.com that delves into an aspect of criminal defense in the Lone Star State. Issues may involve those of interest to clients, potential clients, their loved ones, or the general public.  They may also be pertinent and helpful to attorneys practicing criminal law…


Money Laundering and the Black Market Peso Exchange: Big Target for Federal Agency Investigations

For many profit-making enterprises that operate outside the law, business revenues and profits mean lots of cash that needs to be moved from stacks on a table or in a safe (or set of safes) into places where it can be used to buy things without raising eyebrows or the suspicions of law enforcement.  This…


Dallas is a Marijuana Marketplace: Another Federal Marijuana Trafficking Bust as US Attorney John Bales Announces $1.7 Cash Seized, 17 People Arrested

This week, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas John M. Bales announced to the media that federal authorities have taken possession of almost two million dollars in cash ($1.7 million) as well as arresting seventeen (17) people in a big sting operation operated by the Texas Department of Public Safety (leading agency)…


Two Dallas Police Officers Facing Criminal Investigations After Dallas Civil Trial Judge Rules Their Sworn Testimony in 2011 Criminal Case Is “Perjurious”

Judge Carl Ginsberg presides over the 193rd Judicial District Court of Dallas County, Texas, and has been a Texas trial court judge since January 2007, so he’s not new to the ball game, and when he issued his opinion regarding the Melvin Williams criminal case earlier this month, Judge Ginsberg must have been well aware…


Texas DA Pleads Guilty to Felonies: Will Serve Jail Time, Pay Fine – and Return $2.16 Million He Took

The big news this month down in Alice, Texas (which lies between San Antonio and Corpus Christi, if you’re wondering) is not that former Brooks County and Jim Wells County district attorney Joe Frank Garza has made a deal with prosecutors rather than face trial on a number of felony charges. No, the big news…


Are Police Just Taking Property For Their Own Profit and Use? You Betcha.

Well, first things first — thanks to The Dallas Morning News Crime Blog, where reporter Tanya Eisener let us all know about the recent national study by the Institute for Justice entitled, “Policing for Profit: the Abuse of the Civil Forfeiture Process,“ and written by Scott Bullock together with three Ph.D.s: Dr. Marian R. Williams,  Dr….


Former El Paso Criminal Judge Manuel Barraza Found Guilty by Jury – Going to Jail

Late last week, a federal jury came back with their verdict in the case of the United States v. Manny Barraza over in El Paso.  The verdict?  Former Criminal District Court Judge Manuel Joseph Barraza was guilty of two (2) counts of wire fraud and the deprivation of honest services and one (1) count of…


Cop Watch: Refugio Chief of Police Indicted after Fed Investigation

The Federal Bureau 0f Investigation (FBI), together with the Texas Rangers, just keeps on its quiet tour of the State of Texas, bopping one law enforcement agency after another with criminal indictments.  They’re doing this so often, it’s almost like an adult and scary version of Little Bunny Foo-Foo in that forest with all the…


DA Watch: DA Money in the News – and There’s a Lot of It

The District Attorney for Dallas — the one seen nationwide in the Dallas DNA television series this past year — is making the news again, and this time it’s not about crime. It’s about money. Seems that DA Craig Watkins asked the county for a 10% increase in his annual budget of $35.9 million. What…


Cop Watch: Tenaha Police Highway Robbery Scheme Subject of Fed Class Action Suit

Tenaha is a small Texas town, but it’s on a big traffic route. It sits smack dab in the pathway between Houston and Louisiana’s gambling spots, on US 59 – a highway that’s also known to be a major route for drugs being transported up from Mexico to the South and Midwest. Lotsa cash in…