By Lisa Redmond

MediaNews

TEWKSBURY — Mr. Caswell goes to Washington.

After winning a landmark federal forfeiture case against the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Russell Caswell, owner of the Motel Caswell in Tewksbury, is headed to Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to take part in a legislative briefing called “Policing For Profit” on the campaign to reform the federal civil-forfeiture laws.

The Institute for Justice–a national public-interest law firm that fights civil-forfeiture abuse nationwide — will present the briefing in a bid to curb what it says are widespread abuses of power that have resulted in billions being seized by law enforcement and deposited directly into their own coffers.

The participants include Scott Bullock, senior attorney for the Institute for Justice, which offered key support in Caswell’s legal fight. David Smith, of Smith & Zimmerman, PLLC, and a national expert on civil forfeiture will also speak, as will Caswell, who is listed as an Institute for Justice client and “victim of civil forfeiture.”

Caswell told The Sun he is excited to be going to Washington to “hopefully get this ridiculous law done away with or at least modified so the government isn’t stealing people’s property.”

The goal of the event is to trigger interest among members of Congress to remove or amend this federal civil-forfeiture law, he said.

During his three-year battle with the government, Caswell was on the brink of losing his family’s motel through the federal civil-forfeiture law, which allows the government to seize property linked to drug sales.

The Motel Caswell had been the scene of some drug arrests over the years, but none were linked to Caswell.

After a trial last November, U.S. Magistrate Judge Judith Dein found that the Motel Caswell was not subject to government forfeiture and that Caswell was an “innocent owner” who did not know about or facilitate drug crimes on his property.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office filed a lawsuit to take the Caswells’ property under the civil-forfeiture law, sell the land and keep the money because there have been drug arrests there over the years.

Under the federal law, property can be subject to forfeiture as long as the preponderance of the evidence shows that the property is “used, intended to be used, in any manner or part, to commit or to facilitate the commission of crimes.”

Through a process known as “equitable sharing,” the federal government would keep 20 percent of what it nets, and the local police department would pocket 80 percent. The Caswell family had no mortgage on their property, which was worth more than $1 million.

Dein wrote in a decision in favor of Caswell that is was “rather remarkable” for the government to argue that Caswell should lose his property, which is assessed at $1.5 million with no mortgage, for failing to take “undefined steps” to boost security when the police didn’t communicate with him about the crime problem.

While prosecutors suggested the motel was a hotbed of crime, Dein noted that during a 14-year period, Caswell rented 196,000 rooms, but prosecutors presented evidence of only about a handful of drug-related offenses.

The Institute for Justice says Caswell is not alone.

In 2012, assets deposited into the Department of Justice’s Asset Forfeiture Fund, the federal government’s largest forfeiture fund, exceeded $4 billion, according to an Institute for Justice press release.

That is a 960 percent increase since 2001.