No-sell motel: forfeiture blocked.

• Author: Sullum, Jacob
• Position: Citings - Russell Caswell of Motel Caswell - Brief article

CAN THE federal government legally seize and sell a motel merely because some of the people who stayed there committed drug offenses? No, it can't, a federal magistrate decided in January, blocking the forfeiture of the Motel Caswell, a family-owned business in Tewksbury, Massachusetts.

At a trial last November, federal prosecutors cited one heroin overdose and x4 incidents in which guests or visitors were arrested for drug crimes at the motel from 1994 through 2008--a tiny percentage of the 200,000 or so room rentals during that period--to show the business was a "dangerous property" ripe for seizure. The government argued that owner Russell Caswell was "willfully blind" to drug activity.

In a January 24 ruling, U.S. Magistrate Judge Judith G. Dein rejected that argument, concluding that the connection between the property and the drug offenses was not substantial enough to make it forfeitable under federal law. Even if it were, Dein said, Caswell would qualify for an "innocent owner" defense.

"The evidence was...