If you have trouble with the link given in this article, try this:

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wauk/aug03/164201.asp

Leon


On 8/25/2003 at 9:25 AM Leon Felkins wrote:

Organization: Forfeiture Endangers American Rights  http://www.fear.org/
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[Below are excerpts from a very sad story. The full article can be read

at:

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wauk/aug03/164201.asp]

Seizure of house protested - Lawyer says government was too harsh on

couple

By DAVID DOEGE
ddoege@journalsentinel.com

Last Updated: Aug. 22, 2003

Waukesha - When the United States government filed a forfeiture action
against a Big Bend couple charged last year with growing marijuana in

their

home, it went too far, the couple's probate lawyer says.

Ever since Dennis and Denise Schilling killed themselves rather than face
prosecution, the debate over the scope of their marijuana-growing went
unsettled in criminal court.

That didn't stop a federal prosecutor from concluding that "substantial
drug activity" justified the government's effort to seize the couple's
house.

But as the attorney for their estates is winding up his work in Waukesha
County Probate Court, the final picture emerging of the pair depicts a
middle-age couple who had little more than the roof over their heads.

Life was far from lavish

They borrowed money and raided a retirement account to hire their lawyers,
drove a pair of beat-up old cars and sent in rebate coupons for their

wine.

. . .

The deadline for filing claims against the estates of Dennis and Denise
Schilling recently passed, and after Gaines is done paying their bills,

the

federal government apparently will have collected the biggest share,
leaving relatively little for their five surviving adult children.
"It's a shame that these kids have to share with the government what

little

their parents had," said attorney Martin E. Kohler, who represented Denise
Schilling. "It's the final chapter in a sad story."

. . .

In September, deputies from the U.S. Marshals office hand-delivered a
notice of the forfeiture action against the couple's home, then valued at
$118,000. The home, according to the government, was subject to seizure
because it was used to commit a crime: growing marijuana.

Five days later, their bodies were found hanging in a motel room in
Madison.

. . .

"I'm hoping the federal government will have a little pity and

compassion,"

Gaines said.
The still-unpaid debts stand to exhaust the majority of assets of the
estates.

When a reporter contacted the U.S. attorney's office in Milwaukee to ask
about its decisions in the Schillings' case, William Lipscomb, a spokesman
for the office, said it would have no comment.

. . .


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