Maze Interviewed by The Detroit News on Forfeiture
Back in 2009, Detroit News Reporter George Hunter worked for months collecting and researching the outrageous forfeitures occuring throughout Wayne County. Those months of research culminated in a two part story in the Detroit News along with ancillary stories about forfeiture. And despite public outrage on this issue, the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office has continued to engage in unauthorized car seizures, expanding the scope of these seizures to include cases where mere possession of marijuana or another controlled substance is at issue. Mere possession of a controlled substance does not permit forfeiture under Michigan statutes, so do not permit police and prosecutors to get away with unlawfully seizing your vehicle.
William Maze
Wayne County profits from police property seizures
Critics call confiscation practice a 'money-grab'
George Hunter and Doug Guthrie
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In Wayne County, law enforcement officials regularly seize vehicles without levying charges -- even in cases in which they later concede no law was broken. The agency provides perhaps the most prolific and egregious example of what critics contend is the wrongful use of laws allowing the seizure of private property.
It's a practice that's paying off. The Wayne County Sheriff's Office, which helps run the prosecutor's forfeiture unit, took in $8.69 million from civil seizures in 2007, more than four times the amount collected in 2001. The Wayne County Prosecutor's Office gets up to 27 percent of that money.
