Feds Want to Seize Suspects' gold teeth

[tocqueville]

Fri Apr 7, 11:13 AM ET

TACOMA, Wash. - Talk about taking a bite out of crime — government lawyers tried to remove and confiscate the gold dental work known as grillz from the mouths of two men facing drug charges.

"I've been doing this for over 30 years and I have never heard of anything like this," said Richard J. Troberman, a forfeiture specialist and past president of the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "It sounds like Nazi Germany when they were removing the gold teeth from the bodies, but at least then they waited until they were dead."

According to documents and lawyers involved in the case in U.S. District Court, Flenard T. Neal Jr. and Donald Jamar Lewis, charged with several drug and weapon violations, were taken on Tuesday from the Federal Detention Center to the U.S. marshal's office, where they were told the government had a warrant to seize the grills.

Before being put into a vehicle to be taken to a dentist in Seattle, they called their lawyers, who were able to halt the seizure, said Miriam Schwartz, Neal's public defender. A permanent stay of the seizure order was signed Tuesday by U.S. Magistrate J. Kelley Arnold, court documents show.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060407/ap_on_fe_st/grillz_1

[soothsayer]

1. hey, gold is nearly $600 an oz. The sherrif can really use that $

I guess.

[meegbear]

2. Bad link, please advise

[tocqueville]

5. fixed, sorry for that... nt

[pitohui]

7. true story, link here

http://www.nola.com/newsflash/national/index.ssf?/base/national-5/1144423228210060.xml&storylist=national

"I've been doing this for over 30 years and I have never heard of anything like this," said Richard J. Troberman, a forfeiture specialist and past president of the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "It sounds like Nazi Germany when they were removing the gold teeth from the bodies, but at least then they waited until they were dead."

[Trevelyan]

3. We all keep saying UN - BE - LIEV - ABLE and I can't be shocked anymore

than the bush crime family's lust for gold and for taking food out of children's mounths and now this...

[Ezlivin]

4. If they arrest prostitutes, will they confiscate the breast implants?

We have to dismantle criminals in order to dismantle crime!

[OnyxCollie]

6. I suppose their grillz could be seized like cars, houses, or any other

property that may have been purchased with drug money.

Don't sell drugs, or you'll have Five-O all up in your grillz.

[pitohui]

8. your dental work is part of your body

read the link

i don't care how you made your money, in a decent society we wait until the villain is convicted and dead before we rob him of his very teeth

these were not removable grillz, these were permanent crowns on the teeth

[OnyxCollie]

19. Have you actually seen "grillz"?

I have and I thought they were removable. Would you want this permanently attached to your teeth?



Edit for grammar.

[tocqueville]

9. what if the guy has an expensive prothesis ?

purchased with drug money ?

[pitohui]

12. this is exactly what they had, READ THE LINK

this was not a retainer like temporary just made out of gold to waste money

this was a permanent repair to the teeth

people stopped getting gold fillings because they are too expensive and because we have better "toothlike" options today, not because gold is a bad substance for major dental repairs

if some tacky person wants to have their teeth repaired in old-time gold, there is no health reason for the dentist to say no, and it prob. ain't the dentist's place to point out to the drug dealer that he is being fairly tasteless

[NYC Liberal]

16. How about YOU read the link

It says that the government thought that they were removable. When they realized that they were permenant repairs, they stopped trying to go through with the siezure.

Government lawyers who asked a federal judge on March 29 to order confiscation of the grills said they did not know the caps had been bonded to the drug defendants' teeth.

"Asset forfeiture is a fairly routine procedure, and our attorneys were under the impression that these snapped out like a retainer," said Emily Langlie, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Seattle.

Once the government understood that removal of the grills could damage the defendants' teeth, they abandoned the seizure attempt, she said.

[Cobalt Violet]

24. Apparently no one wants to.

:shrug:

[shain from kane]

20. What about a penile implant? Might need that in jail to assert their

manhood(?).

[Der Blaue Engel]

10. What if you buy tits?

Can they take them too?

[pitohui]

14. tits are of no value

however, some implants, such as saline implants, go blooey fairly often and have to be replaced, can you imagine being a prisoner and being struck or just because the implant was old, it goes flat, you know damn well they would not do the repairs needed to keep you symmetrical


hell a few years back the nation magazine claimed to have found cases of women prisoners who were refused treatment for breast cancer

so i guess that is taking your tits -- and ultimately taking your life as well

[tocqueville]

18. I value tits very much but not as "stand-alones" nt

[Ilsa]

11. ...they abandoned the seizure attempt...

Neal and Lewis have permanently bonded grills, their lawyers said, declining to provide more description.

Government lawyers who asked a federal judge on March 29 to order confiscation of the grills said they did not know the caps had been bonded to the drug defendants' teeth.

"Asset forfeiture is a fairly routine procedure, and our attorneys were under the impression that these snapped out like a retainer," said Emily Langlie, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Seattle.

Once the government understood that removal of the grills could damage the defendants' teeth, they abandoned the seizure attempt, she said.

[MadisonProgressive]

13. Hands over your head! Now move SLOWLY away from your teeth...

[genieroze]

15. Never mind, they were the permanent ones.

"Asset forfeiture is a fairly routine procedure, and our attorneys were under the impression that these snapped out like a retainer," said Emily Langlie, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Seattle.

If they were under the impression that they snapped out like a retainer, then why were they trying to sneak them to the dentist?

[genieroze]

17. I wonder if they would try to seize Cheneys pacemaker?

[shain from kane]

21. What about Trafficant's squirrel hairpiece? Did he get to keep it?

No one else wanted it.

[genieroze]

22. Let Cheney shoot it.

[lonestarnot]

23. WTF? More nazis!

Tell me we are getting into some real nazi tactics here. Bullshit!