Thread: TX - Lawmakers target finances of criminal organizations

Right Napolitano, it hasn't spilled over the border yet.

Lawmakers target finances of criminal organizations
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Proposed bill would create a state civil racketeering offense
February 23, 2009 - 9:06 PM
Jeremy Roebuck
The Monitor

AUSTIN -- The state's top prosecutor hopes to target Texas' largest criminal organizations through their pocketbooks using a bill filed in both the House and the Senate on Monday.

The law would create a civil racketeering offense and lower the burden of proof required to seize assets and profits from gangs, human smuggling networks and other organized crime syndicates.

Dubbed the "Texas Racketeering and Corruption Act," the proposal is the latest in an ongoing statewide effort to target drug and human trafficking networks, whose operations have been described as the "No. 1 security threat" currently facing the state, State Rep. Aaron Peña said.

Peña, D-Edinburg, filed the bill in the House while State Sens. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, and Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, co-sponsored the legislation in the Senate.

"The history of fighting crime in Texas has been let's just lock ‘em up and throw away the key," Peña said. "But when it comes to organized crime, you take out the head and it is replaced by someone else. This gives the Attorney General's office a new tool to hit them where it hurts - their assets."

Under current state law, local authorities can seize assets used in criminal activities in their jurisdictions. But no statute allows state prosecutors to initiate forfeiture proceedings for crimes that play out across multiple cities and counties.

The change is needed - Texas Attorney General Gregg Abbott said - because statewide prison gangs like the Texas Syndicate have expanded their areas of operations to include every major metropolitan area in the state.

The proposed law would also lower the burden of proof needed to successfully seize the assets.

Under criminal statutes, prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the money or property had been used in the commission of a crime. But with a civil forfeiture law, attorneys for the state would only have to show that it is more likely than not that the items were used criminally.

"So many of these crimes a transjurisdictional," Abbott said at a press conference in Austin on Monday. "We are hoping to go to the head of a financial-based industry, where these people are profiting off of illegal activity to the tune of billions of dollars."


GROWING THREAT

Increasingly, Mexico's entrenched drug cartels have come to rely on Texas' homegrown gangs to control wholesale narcotics distribution north of the border, according to a report issued late last year by the National Drug Intelligence Center.

And combating the state's lucrative drug, arms, cash and human smuggling industries has already become one of the top priorities of this year's Legislative session.

Gov. Rick Perry has asked lawmakers to approve a $24 million initiative to combat the state's growing gang problem. And groups such as the Mexican Mafia and the Texas Chicano Brotherhood have recently been linked to the Tamaulipas-based Gulf Cartel in law enforcement intelligence reports.

Last week, the Texas Department of Public Safety vowed to emphasize more labor-intensive cases that would target the top leadership of those groups.

Citing the success of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, DPS interim director Col. Stan Clark told state senators Wednesday that the state would need to take on larger cases to make real dents in these organizations.

Originally created in the ‘70s to fight the Mafia, federal RICO statutes have since been used to get at crime bosses who often keep their hands clean of individual criminal acts and the profits made from them. Next month, thirteen local Texas Syndicate members and their associates are set to face federal RICO charges in court for a string of drug deals, assassinations and cases of witness intimidation.

"The metric is not how many investigations you've had, but have you taken out the command and control structure," Clark said at a hearing before the Senate's Transportation and Homeland Security Committee.


REFORM EFFORT

But Peña's proposal also comes amid calls for an overhaul of the state's current asset forfeiture laws from lawmakers who argue they are frequently abused by overzealous local authorities.

Police in the small East Texas town of Tenaha - near the Louisiana border - are only the latest to have gained statewide attention for their liberal use of state seizure statutes.

A group of eight plaintiffs recently sued the city in a U.S. District Court claiming officers would stop non-white motorists, search their cars, and threaten to charge them with crimes unless they agreed to forfeit cash and other items found in the vehicles.

Lawmakers found that other local law enforcement offices were using asset seizures to fund the day-to-day operations of their departments.

"What was once a crime fighting and law enforcement tool has become a profit-making, personal account for some law enforcement officials," the Texas Senate's Criminal Justice Committee noted in a recent report.

Peña maintained Monday that his bill would have limited room for potential abuse. Since the powers it would grant are limited to the attorney general's office, it's unlikely to create the type of highway robbery alleged in Tenaha, he said.

Before the bill becomes law, it must be approved by a legislative committee and voted on by both members of the state House and Senate.

Jeremy Roebuck covers courts and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4437.

http://www.themonitor.com/articles/stat ... minal.html

81(R) SB 1065 - Introduced version - Bill Text
Author: Williams | et al.

81(R) HB 1618 - Introduced version - Bill Text
Author: Pena

Caption: Relating to the civil and criminal prosecution of racketeering; providing penalties.

Excerpt: ACTION IN REM. (a) In addition to bringing suit against a person or enterprise under Section 140.003, the attorney general may pursue an in rem action under Chapter 59, Code of Criminal Procedure, for forfeiture of: (1) any property or interest in property acquired or maintained by the person or enterprise in violation of Chapter 34A, Penal Code, or Section 71.02(a)(14), Penal Code; (2) any interest, security, claim, or any other form of property, office, title, license, or contractual right ...