HERE FOR YOU GUEST
HERE FOR YOU GUEST column Phone Online Office A division of Cole Taylor Bank, Cole Taylor Mortgage offers you a strong banking foundation. We combine that foundation with flexibility to provide you with the right mortgage loan product for your individual situation. Contact us today to learn about the many loan products available to help you. (248) 381-8865 coletaylormortgage.com/farmingtonhills 30630 W. 12 Mile Rd., Ste. A, Farmington Hills Member FDIC NMLS #493677 OMC ManageMent grOup • Lender Services • Management • Board-Ups • Construction OMC Management Group 9930 Whittier Avenue Detroit, MI 48224 313-886-7000 www. OMCRealEstate.com • Renovations • Weather Proofing • Maintenance • Acquisitions Jerry Watha Let Us Protect YoUr Assets. • Sales & Marketing • Loan Mitigation • Note Purchasing • Land Contract Origination Multi-Family Commercial Residential Wrongfully taken by the IRS by Sandy Thomas I will never forget January 22, 2013. That’s the day I discovered more than ,000 missing from our family business’ bank account. Later that day, I learned our money was seized not by some hackers or thieves, but by the IRS. Dumbfounded, I couldn’t believe this had happened. I’ve always paid my taxes and never broke any laws. But the IRS is refusing to return the cash they wrongfully seized. To get it back, I’m suing them in federal court. Together with my father, Tarik Dehko, we run Schott’s Supermarket, a grocery store in Fraser. During the 1970s, my dad left Iraq so he could practice his Chaldean Catholic faith freely in America. He started a family, became an American citizen, and bought Schott’s, which provides jobs for more than 30 people. Since then, Schott’s has been a family-owned business for 35 years. Since I was 12 years old, I helped out my dad at the store every Saturday: I collected shopping carts from the parking lot, made ice bags and bagged groceries. Even today, my dad still works hard, seven days a week, making sure everything is running smoothly at our store. We thought we were living the American dream. But now the IRS has turned that dream into a nightmare. The IRS seized our bank account under civil forfeiture, a little-known legal process that has violated the rights of too many Americans. To be clear, this is not the same as criminal forfeiture, where criminals can have their assets seized for the crimes they committed. Under civil forfeiture, innocent property owners like us don’t even have to be charged with, let alone convicted of, a crime to lose our hardearned cash, cars or even homes. For our case, the government has falsely accused us of breaking federal banking laws. Banks must report any cash transaction over ,000 to the federal government. It’s against the law to break up deposits into smaller amounts for the purpose of getting past that requirement. But it is not illegal to make frequent cash deposits when there’s a legitimate business reason — which is exactly what my father and I have been doing. Like basically all grocers, we receive cash every day from our customers. So clerks from Schott’s regularly deposit that cash at a bank right across the street. As any small business owner can tell you, it’s never a good idea to let too much cash accumulate on-site. Plus, depositing cash is safer: it protects us against thieves and our insurance policy explicitly limits coverage of cash losses to ,000. As we soon discovered first-hand, civil forfeiture proceedings make a mockery of the American justice system. Incredibly, the government can seize property without charging people with any wrongdoing, and then pocket the proceeds without giving the victims a prompt court review of Tarik Dehko and his daughter, Sandy Thomas, at the family supermarket. the taking. After the IRS snatched our account, the government did not grant us a hearing before or soon after. So we’ve been forced to spend thousands of dollars to hire attorneys, just to get a hearing before a judge. Even then, it will have taken more than 10 months. Because the costs can be so high, most victims can’t afford to challenge civil forfeitures of their property. The overwhelming majority of these cases never reach a judge or jury. Innocent people should not lose their property unjustly. That’s why my father and I are working with the Institute for Justice, a nationwide civil liberties law firm that fights forfeiture abuse, and taking the government to federal court. We have committed no crime and broken no law. If we win, our case would set an important precedent to help protect other innocent Americans from civil forfeiture. Sandy Thomas is the owner of Schott’s Supermarket and a client of the Institute for Justice. For more information on her case, visit ij.org/miforf. 12 CHALDEAN NEWS NOVEMBER 2013
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