illegal wholesale seizure of personal and business assets
THE ILLEGAL WHOLESALE SEIZURE OF PERSONAL AND BUSINESS ASSETS TAKEN BY A COURT WITHOUT WARRANT, AND WITHOUT ANY TYPE OF PRE-DEPRIVATION HEARING, WHICH IS REQUIRED BY LAW
Regarding the illegal wholesale seizure itself, the government has illegally seized all of Larsen's personal, business, and even retirement assets, and thereafter prevented Larsen from accessing any of the same, even for retaining counsel for criminal prosecutions. There was no due process whatsoever! Larsen will point out that his monies, assets, and accounts had absolutely nothing to do with any charges, and nothing was ever subject to forfeiture from the beginning; no claim to the contrary of such has ever been made by the government or anybody else. Yet, a complete confiscation of Larsen's entire life savings and all assets occurred and has prevented him from retaining counsel of his choice from the very beginning of this nightmare. This is not referring to "chump-change" here; Larsen had a seven-figure net worth yet was not allowed access to anything that he had worked all of his life for! To further put into perspective what has occurred, Larsen offers the following:
1) There was NO Administrative Forfeiture proceeding.
2) There was NO Criminal Forfeiture proceeding.
3) There was NO Civil Forfeiture proceeding.
4) All personal, business, and retirement assets seized have NO nexus to any kind of crime, and
NO claim to the contrary of such has ever been made by the government or anybody else.
5) Innocent owner status most certainly applies.
6) There was NO search warrant for any of the personal, business, or retirement assets seized.
7) There was NO probable cause to believe that ANY of Larsen's personal, business, or
retirement assets/property were ever subject to forfeiture or seizure to begin with.
8) Assets/property seem to have been taken solely for the purpose of preventing Larsen from
retaining the counsel of choice he wanted, and/or any other counsel for various matters.
9) There was NO pre-deprivation hearing, as is required by law.
10) There was NO post-deprivation hearing.
11) The judge who illegally seized Larsen's assets and accounts was the wife of the District
Attorney prosecuting Larsen in the same Racine Count Court. Wis. Stat. §757.19(2) (2004)
specifically required her to disqualify herself, but this did NOT occur! Instead, she did what
she did without a hearing and with a Serious Conflict of Interest.
12) At the end of an order from a child support hearing, the sole purpose of which was to
determine how child support was going to be adjusted and paid while Larsen was in the
county jail awaiting charges, the judge added a line essentially preventing Larsen from
"wasting, harming, encumbering, or transferring" his real or personal property. She
thereafter had all of Larsen's assets initially frozen, and then placed into receivership with
the county; NEVER HAVING CONDUCTED A HEARING TO DO SO! Also, never having issued
a warrant to seize property, as stated above. This essentially seized/confiscated everything
that Larsen ever owned or had an interest in; including businesses that Larsen had
established that were sovereign legal entities. Also worth noting here: The judge who made
the illegal seizure even commented on the record of the child support hearing that future
child support payments were primary over even retaining an attorney for criminal
prosecutions [R231:32].
The government has illegally seized all of Larsen's:
* Personal accounts and assets
* Business accounts and assets
* Rental accounts and assets
* 401K retirement funds
* IRA accounts
* A sovereign irrevocable Trust account
* Assets and funds from a sovereign L.L.C.
* Assets and funds from a sovereign F.L.P.
They have done so:
* without warrant
* without notice
* without cause
* without any type of pre-deprivation hearing, as is required by law.
During the course of this illegal seizure ANY and ALL of Larsen's bills and obligations were prevented from being paid (mortgages, vehicles payments, business equipment payments, etc.) The court forced the sale of many real estate properties that would never have otherwise been sold if it were not for the court preventing mortgages and other expenses from being paid. Sales were facilitated for just pennies on the dollar in relation to actual appraised values, just to avoid total loss or foreclosure altogether; the court then illegally confiscated that money as well. That which was not taken directly was ultimately lost and/or unbelievably devalued by what the court did next. When the real estate properties were forced to be sold, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of personal and business assets, located within those properties, were forced into storage. The court then prevented Larsen's family from paying the storage fees with Larsen's funds and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of property was sold for a mere couple of hundred dollars by the storage facility holding it. Among these assets was over a hundred thousand dollars worth of brand new business equipment that had been purchased less than a year earlier; some never even used yet. This included things such as:
* An Ingersol/Rand truck mounted air compressor
* A commercial/industrial grade peristaltic concrete pump with attached hopper
* A commercial/industrial grade hydraulic concrete mixer
* Motorized polar-scaffolding
* Regular scaffolding
* Industrial grade rebar cutters
* Expensive laser leveling equipment and laser distance measuring equipment
* Several commercial grade HEPA fans/filters for asbestos removal
* Several specialized commercial/industrial fans for dome inflation
* Several large drying fans
* Case skidsteer loader with forklift and excavator backhoe attachments
* Several industrial grade job boxes containing tens of thousands of dollars of tools and
specialized tools
* Several thousand dollars of specialized concrete pumping hose and nozzles for shotcreting
* Several thousand dollars of specialized electrical cables for concrete pump, inflation fans,
and internal drying fans.
* Compressor hoses and nozzles
* Multiple sets of Little Giant Ladders and associated accessories
* Commercial grade pallet jack
* A 15,000 kilowatt duel-fuel generator
* A smaller, portable generator for emergency use
* Thousands of dollars worth of specialized low-heat lighting sets and associated accessories
* And the list goes on and on.
All of Larsen's personal household furnishings, personal possessions, as well as office furnishings and office equipment were also included in what was sent into storage. (For what it's worth, all of the things involved, including the real estate properties, were very specifically Larsen's post-judgment property from a divorce years earlier. Larsen has the divorce transcripts to show all of that, and the vast majority of what was ultimately declared as post-judgment property was actually also pre-marital property as well (all real estate holdings, etc.)). All of this was mysteriously gone without explanation and less than a couple hundred dollars to show for it, which the court then took too. As stated above, all of this was done without warrants, without cause, without notice, and without any type of pre-deprivation, post-deprivation, or forfeiture hearing whatsoever; and by a person with the most serious of conflicts of interest possible. Everything Larsen had ever owned or had an interest in, just illegally taken! These blatant constitutional violations have never been addressed.
From what Larsen has been able to determine, U.S. v. Gonzalez-Lopez (548 U.S. 140) seems to be the predominate "right to counsel of choice" case to be referenced at present. Larsen has been denied and deprived of hiring ANY attorney of his own choosing with his own funds from day one, and that injustice continues to this day. This is an injustice of the gravest nature! Unlike Gonzalez-Lopez, where the defendant merely wanted to change attorneys, Larsen was not even allowed to retain counsel for criminal prosecutions to begin with, and Larsen certainly had the means to retain an entire legal team, not just one attorney. The facts involved with respect to Larsen's case, blow Gonzalez-Lopez out of the water as if it were inconsequential. Even the federally appointed attorney that Larsen was given stated that he could not find one single case nationwide where the government had so blatantly and egregiously denied a citizen of access to funds and assets that were rightfully and legitimately his without question. Yet, this injustice goes on unanswered.
The United States Supreme Court has also stated: "The right to select counsel of one's choice" is thus "the root meaning" of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel." United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez, 548 U.S. 140, 147-148 (2006), and Luis v. United States, 136 S.Ct. 1083, 1086 (2016).
The United States Supreme Court further states: "Where the right to be assisted by counsel of one's choice is wrongly denied, therefore, it is unnecessary to conduct an ineffectiveness or prejudice inquiry to establish a Sixth amendment violation. Deprivation of the right is "complete" when the defendant is erroneously prevented from being represented by the lawyer he wants, regardless of the quality of the representation he received. To argue otherwise is to confuse the right to counsel of choice- which is the right to a particular lawyer regardless of comparative effectiveness- with the right to effective counsel- which imposes a baseline requirement of competence on whatever lawyer is chosen or appointed." United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez, 548 U.S. 140, 148 (2006).
Both Amendment IV and Amendment V of the U.S. Constitution prohibit such seizures. Amendment IV of the U.S. Constitution very specifically states:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue but
upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the
place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized."
Amendment V of the U.S. Constitution further states, in relevant part, that:
"No person shall...Be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..."
The United States Supreme Court has previously stated: "seizure of personal property [will be] per se unreasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment unless it is accomplished pursuant to a judicial warrant issued upon probable cause and particularly describing the items to be seized." United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 701 (1983).
Even existing case law, from the very Federal Circuit Court that Larsen is within, has clearly stated: "Seizing personal property without a judicial warrant that describes the items to be seized is presumptively unreasonable." United States v. James. 571 F.3d 707, 713 (7th Cir. 2007).
The United States Supreme Court has recently stated, in 2016, that the government cannot improperly freeze assets of a defendant when those assets have no connection to the charged crimes, thereby depriving the defendant of those untainted assets intended to pay for counsel, because doing so deprives the defendant of his fundamental right to the assistance of counsel of the defendant's choice at the defendant's expense. The court further stated, that the government's non-constitutional interest in preserving the assets to provide for payment of potential criminal forfeitures or restitution if the defendant was convicted is not the equivalent of the defendant's constitutional right to the assistance of counsel of the defendant's choice. Luis v. United States, 136 S.Ct 1083, 194 L.Ed.2d 256, 2016 U.S. LEXIS 2272.
Lastly, the United States Supreme Court "concluded that the pretrial restraint of legitimate, untainted assets needed to retain counsel of choice violates the Sixth amendment." Luis v. United States, 136 S.Ct. 1083, 1085 (2016).