Police Chief Who Ordered Cops to Abuse Forfeiture Laws Sentenced To Prison For Extortion, Bribery & Theft

By Warren Kulo

JACKSON, Mississippi - 50-year-old Bruce Barlow was sentenced to five years in federal prison for conspiracy to commit extortion, bribery and theft while he was Chief of Police for the City of Mendenhall.

U.S. Attorney Gregory K. Davis and FBI Special Agent in Charge Daniel McMullen announced the sentence Tuesday afternoon. Barlow will also spend three years on post-release supervision and will pay restitution in an amount to be determined at a July 10 hearing.

According to investigators, from January 2010 through July 2010, Barlow instructed Mendenhall police officers to pull over motorists and find ways to gain access into and search their vehicles. He also instructed his officers to seize cash at every arrest, including arrests for misdemeanor charges.

When Barlow was interviewed by FBI agents on March 7, 2013, he admitted to stealing money and property and allowing others to take property seized by the Mendenhall Police Department from the victims after an arrest or detention.

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The American Nightmare That Is Civil Asset Forfeiture

by Wendy McElroy

Being innocent does not matter. Not being arrested or convicted of a crime is no protection. With amazing ease, the government can take everything you own. And to recover it, you must prove your innocence through an expensive and difficult court proceeding in which a severely lowered standard of evidence favors the government. This is civil asset forfeiture.

Russell and Patricia Caswell of Tewksbury, Massachusetts, know the process well. For the last two years they have battled to keep the motel that Russell?s father built in 1955 and at which Russell has worked since childhood. The couple assumed ownership of Motel Caswell in the 1980s, and viewed the asset, worth approximately $1 million, as their retirement plan.

In the past 20 years, the Caswells have rented out approximately 125,000 rooms. Of the renters, about .05 percent have been arrested for crimes. As ?good? citizens, the Caswells have meticulously reported any suspicious activity on the part of renters to the police, including possible drug use.

Nevertheless, the U.S. Department of Justice is in the process of confiscating the motel without any compensation, through civil forfeiture, because it was used in the commission of a crime. The local police with whom the Caswells actively cooperated for years are the ones who reported them to the federal agency. Why? Because, under a policy known as ?equitable sharing,? the Tewksbury police department stands to gain as much as 80 percent of the value of the seized property.

Civil forfeiture in America is both a simple and complex tale. The simple part is that government agencies are often seizing assets for no reason other than the fact that they can. The complexity is how civil forfeiture operates.

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