The government shouldn’t use civil forfeiture to take money from people who’ve done nothing wrong. But the IRS seized the Dehko family’s grocery store’s bank account and they had to fight for a year to get it back.
Terry Dehko and his daughter Sandy Thomas run a family-owned grocery store called Schott’s Market in Fraser, Michigan, about 20 miles north of Detroit. Another IJ client, Mark Zaniewski, operates a gas station just down the road. In 2013, the IRS used civil forfeiture to seize the entire operating account of the grocery store and the gas station on the premise that routinely making cash deposits—as both businesses do since many customers pay in cash—violates federal banking laws. Neither the Dehkos nor Zaniewski were charged with any crime. Fortunately, IJ was able to show that the government missed key deadlines, thus requiring it to return their hard-earned cash.