WHAT A HEEL: Felonious DA Diverts Asset Forfeiture Funds
Former TX DA Joe Frank Garza was sentenced to 180 days in jail for using money seized from drug busts to give himself and other employees in his office a pay raise, ordered to pay $2 million in restitution and was fined $10,000, the TX Attorney General’s office announced:
Garza’s jail term begins Monday morning. The former elected prosecutor’s sentencing follows his March guilty plea acknowledging his commission of a first-degree felony. …
The Texas Attorney General’s Office opened a criminal investigation into the 79th District Attorney’s misuse of county asset forfeiture funds between January 2002 and December 2008. According to state investigators with the Attorney General’s Office, Garza illegally spent asset forfeiture funds for his and his employees’ personal financial benefit. …
Under Texas law, district attorneys may only supplement their salaries – and their employees’ salaries – with the forfeiture fund dollars if the local county commissioners court approves the pay raises.
Despite those legal requirements, then-District Attorney Garza did not obtain approval from the commissioners court – and instead unilaterally spent asset forfeiture funds for his and others’ personal financial benefit in violation of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure.
The Wall Street Journal reports that, “[l]egislation is pending in Texas that would restrict law enforcement officers’ ability to use seized assets for their personal benefit,” adding that despite criticism from civil libertarians that Garza’s case is hardly unique, the Department of Justice considers asset forfeiture a key tactic in “depriving criminals of the proceeds of illegal activity … and restoring property to victims.”
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