Utah Sen. Mike Lee has joined libertarian and civil rights advocates in opposing U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ plan to expand the federal government’s civil asset forfeiture program, which seizes billions of dollars from suspects, even if they are never charged with a crime.
• In 1989, Emery County sheriff’s deputies confiscated $108,890 from a Michigan man after they pulled over his employee and found the money stashed in a fake gas tank. The officers suspected it was drug money, but the man said it was from the sale of a business he had in California.
The man’s defense attorney, who later was elected Emery County attorney, sought $10,889 in attorney fees for himself, but the money’s owner couldn’t be located so it was placed in a trust fund.