Forfeiture Follies
...Despite having some of the highest taxes in the nation, Nassau County has such a massive structural deficit that it's under the thumb of a finance authority to compel the executive and legislature to avoid renaming the courthouse after Wal-Mart. This had nothing to do with the fact that its crime lab has been shuttered for lying and cheating, while under the watchful eye of Rice and cops perpetually by her side. Now they have to do it all over again, paying a competent lab for the effort, and this only goes back as far as 2005, while no one knows how far back the lying and cheating goes.

What if the cost of this incompetence meant that schools were closed, teachers fired? What if it meant taxes went up for the nice family in the split level on the corner? What if it meant your taxes went up. You would be angry. You would be very upset that massive incompetence, the sort you could put your finger on, was taking money out of your pocket. You would make the angry sound, grrrr, and go out to the garage to look for the pitchfork.

Fortunately, you won't have to. As Rice announced, it won't cost taxpayers a dime. The cost will be paid from the "police department's forfeiture funds." They way she said it, she sounds like the taxpayer's hero. Heroine? That just sounds wrong, though.

This carefully crafted announcement, however, hides a few ugly things behind the great news. First, that the police have a slush fund that nobody knows about, all while they are sucking at the public teet for money to keep cops on the street to protect the womenfolk from rapists. Second, that this slush fund came from asset forfeitures, that shady process of civil seizures with negligible basis and even lower burden of proof, while owners are tied up with defending against criminal prosecution.

But the third bit of ugliness is that one that raised the cackles of the Newsday editorial writer, that the amount of the slush fund is itself a big secret...