BILL NUMBER:S7658

TITLE OF BILL:  An act to amend the civil practice law and rules, in
relation to forfeiture allocations

PURPOSE AND EXISTING LAW:  Asset forfeiture is the confiscation of
assets that are either the proceeds of crime or the instrumentalities
of crime. Chapter 655 of the Laws of 1990 significantly amended the
existing forfeiture provisions of Article 13-A of New York State's
Civil Practice Laws and Rules (CPLR) and enacted new criminal
forfeiture provisions for felony controlled substance offenses in
Article 480 of the state's Penal Law. The present amendments
redistribute the amounts required by to law to better provide for the
organizations that actually conduct the operations necessary to obtain
forfeitures in criminal cases. This legislation allows claiming
authorities to receive more of the monies realized by fruits of their
labor. These moneys are presently going to certain state funds
maintained by the Division of Criminal Justice Services, this
legislation requires that 50 percent more of the monies that were
going to the DCJS accountants are to be made available to the Claiming
authority and additional monies to accounts the chemical dependence
service fund. Thereby earmarking more monies for treatment and future
prosecutions.

The other monies which remain will still go to the DCJS state funds
but are to be split between two funds that provide monies to police
              

departments and district attorneys equally and the amounts set aside
for district attorneys are also limited to use for investigation of
drug offenses whereas previously such funds were general funds to be
used for penal law offenses.

SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:

Section 1 amends Section 1359 of the CPLR paragraph e and g of
subdivision two, which provides the percentage disbursement of monies
seized trough he asset forfeiture provisions of the Criminal Procedure
Law. Specifically section one provides that 25% instead of 15% of the
monies recovered and available after the statutory priorities are
complied with is to be made available to the claiming authority.
These monies may be retained by the claiming authority but are
restricted for use on future drug offense investigations. This section
also provides additional monies for treatment modifying the formula
for disbursement to the Chemical Dependence service fund to 50%
instead of 40% of monies available after the statutory priorities are
complied with.

Section 2 amends Subparagraphs I and II of paragraph H of subdivision
2 of section 1349 of the CPLR and Provides that the remaining monies
as a result of criminal asset forfeiture (20%) will be split equally
between a law enforcement the subaccount of the state's general fund
and a prosecution services subaccount of the state's general fund said
prosecution subaccount funds restricted to disbursement for use of
prosecuting drug offenses.

Section 3 effective date


JUSTIFICATION:  Heroin use is an epidemic in our state. Its impact now
touches every aspect of our society regardless of income, education,
gender or community. Upstate and Downstate are suffering from this
scourge.  It's ruining peoples' lives and destroying families. The
increasing availability of this drug combined with more powerful
incarnations and its sheer addictiveness has created a public health
and safety crisis of incredible magnitude. This crisis includes the
all too often death of too many New Yorkers. This law will provide
more incentives for district attorney's and law enforcement around the
state to investigate and prosecute drug dealers by allowing DA's to
retain more of the proceeds from seized asset than current law. The
sponsor's intent is that these additional monies will fund additional
prosecutions of drug dealers providing more and more monies thorough
seizure to DA's offices to combat the heroin epidemic. More seized
money will also fund more substance abuse prevention and treatment.

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY: None

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS: None.

EFFECTIVE DATE: Immediately