\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n <\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p><!-- END-BLOCK(acast)[0] --><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"has-underline\">In 1992,<\/span> Donald Scott, the eccentric owner of a large Malibu estate, was killed in his home by an ad hoc team of raiding cops. The Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s Department led the raid, but a panoply of state and federal police agencies participated too. Police claimed Scott was operating a large marijuana grow on the property. Scott, who always feared the government would take his land, actually repudiated the use of illegal drugs.<\/p>\n<p>No marijuana or any illicit drugs were found on his property. A subsequent investigation by the local district attorney confirmed Scott wasn\u2019t paranoid: The LA County Sheriff\u2019s Department was motivated by a desire to take Scott\u2019s property under civil asset forfeiture laws, auction it off, and keep the proceeds for the department. Bizarrely, Scott\u2019s home wasn\u2019t even in LA County. Despite recent reform efforts, the promise of forfeiture continues to be a major motivating force in drug policy across the country.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-transcript\">Transcript<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>In the early hours of October 2, 1992, a wealthy, eccentric Californian named Donald Scott and his younger artistic wife Frances were up late drinking, as they often were. The couple eventually passed out in the bedroom of their large cabin in Malibu at around 2 or 3 a.m.<\/p>\n<p>As they fell asleep, they may have heard the waterfall that splashed down onto their sprawling 200-acre property. They called it \u201cTrail\u2019s End Ranch.\u201d And then just before 9 a.m., Frances Plante Scott awoke with a start.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Frances Plante Scott:<\/strong> We were in bed asleep, and the house started shaking, and the dogs were going crazy and \u2026 [sigh]<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>That\u2019s Plante in an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-MeyggzdcB4&t=99s\">ABC \u201c20\/20\u201d interview<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-MeyggzdcB4&t=99s\">from 1993<\/a>, describing the morning that ruined her life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Frances Plante Scott:<\/strong> I got up as fast as I could to get dressed. And I was going to the door, and I see this face looking at me. At that point, the door burst open, and I just saw all these guns. These men had guns, and I didn\u2019t know who they were or what they were doing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko:<\/strong> As Plante threw on a shirt and pair of overalls, a team of 30 law enforcement officers loomed near the entrance to her home. <\/p>\n<p>The raid team was an alphabet soup of police and government agencies, including officers from the Los Angeles Sheriff\u2019s Department, the Drug Enforcement agency, the California Bureau of Narcotics, the U.S. Forest Service, the Los Angeles Police Department, the National Park Service, the California National Guard \u2014 and there were even a couple of researchers from NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Lab. Notably, the raid team didn\u2019t include a single police officer from Ventura County, where the ranch was actually located.<\/p>\n<p>The motley crew of heavily armed officials had made their way up the winding road to the ranch in 15 different vehicles. Now they were inside Plante\u2019s home, with their guns drawn.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Frances Plante Scott: <\/strong>I just screamed, \u201cDon\u2019t shoot me, don\u2019t kill me,\u201d and I was backing into my living room. My husband heard me. He came running out of the back of the house into the living room. I heard him say, \u201cFrances, are you all right?\u201d <\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko:<\/strong> Unsure of what was causing all of the commotion, Plante\u2019s husband Donald Scott grabbed the .38 revolver on his nightstand. He was groggy, and his vision was likely still foggy from recent cataract surgery.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Frances Plante Scott: <\/strong>He had his gun pointed above his head. He looked at me, and the next thing, someone yelled, \u201cPut your gun down, put your gun down, put your gun down.\u201d Bang, bang, bang. My husband fell down right in front of me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Capt. Richard DeWitt: <\/strong>Looks like 927D here.<br \/><strong>Dispatch: <\/strong>At the location?<br \/><strong>Capt. Richard DeWitt: <\/strong>Yeah.<br \/><strong>Dispatch: <\/strong>Some bodies there?<br \/><strong>Capt. Richard DeWitt: <\/strong>No, we put \u2019em down.<br \/><strong>Dispatch: <\/strong>We killed him?<br \/><strong>Capt. Richard DeWitt:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>That\u2019s Capt. Richard DeWitt of the Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s Department, on the phone with his commanding officer. You can hear the surprise on the other end of the line, as the commander learned that someone had been killed.<\/p>\n<p>What had Donald Scott done? What merited this sort of overwhelming police response? <\/p>\n<p>Scott wasn\u2019t a murderer or an arms dealer. He wasn\u2019t an escaped felon or a dangerous fugitive. Instead, the police claimed on their search warrant affidavit that he was growing marijuana.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bill Aylesworth:<\/strong> They couldn\u2019t care less about the weed if there was any there. Basically, they wanted the land.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>In the years leading up to the raid on his home, Donald Scott\u2019s friends and family said that he had grown increasingly paranoid that the government wanted to take his property from him.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Frances Plante Scott: <\/strong>He had a feeling that, it was just a feeling that they were going to try to get the land from him somehow. He thought that they wanted the land to the point of where they would kill him for this land.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko:<\/strong> It turns out that Donald Scott was right. The government really did want his property. A lengthy Ventura County District Attorney <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/19961104145522\/http:\/\/www.fear.org\/chron\/scott.txt\">investigation<\/a> confirmed Scott\u2019s suspicions and concluded that seizing his ranch was one of the motivating factors for obtaining and serving the search warrant. <\/p>\n<p>The lead LA County Sheriff deputy on the case filed an affidavit claiming that there was a marijuana grow on the property. If the agency uncovered it, they might be able to seize all 200 acres of Trail\u2019s End Ranch under civil asset forfeiture laws, and then they could auction it off. The millions of dollars in proceeds would go right back to the LA Sheriff\u2019s Department and the other participating agencies. The raiding officers would be heroes. It was the sort of bust that could make a cop\u2019s career.<\/p>\n<p>Except that isn\u2019t what happened. There was no major marijuana operation. In fact, there wasn\u2019t a single marijuana plant anywhere on the property.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dan Alban: <\/strong>At the end of the day, they were just looking for an excuse to invade his ranch, search everything, and find some basis for the seizure \u2014 which, in this case, they didn\u2019t find.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>For the next decade, the dispute over what exactly happened that morning at Trail\u2019s End would fuel countless national news stories, lawsuits, and defamation claims. It would pit the Ventura County district attorney\u2019s office against the LA Sheriff\u2019s Department and the state attorney general\u2019s office. Those latter two agencies would issue their own findings exonerating the sheriff\u2019s deputies for Scott\u2019s death.<\/p>\n<p>It would also spur a furious debate over the policy of civil asset forfeiture, and would become just the latest in a series of corruption and brutality scandals to rock the largest sheriff\u2019s department in the country.<\/p>\n<p>From The Intercept, this is <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/podcasts\/collateral-damage\/\">Collateral Damage<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/staff\/radley-balko\/\">Radley Balko<\/a>. I\u2019m an investigative journalist who has been covering the drug war and the criminal justice system for more than 20 years.<\/p>\n<p>The so-called \u201cwar on drugs\u201d began as a metaphor to demonstrate the country\u2019s fervent commitment to defeating drug addiction, but the \u201cwar\u201d part quickly became all too literal. <\/p>\n<p>When the drug war ramped up in the 1980s and \u201990s, it brought helicopters, tanks, and SWAT teams to U.S. neighborhoods. It brought dehumanizing rhetoric, and the suspension of basic civil liberties protections. All wars have collateral damage: the people whose deaths are tragic but deemed necessary for the greater cause. But once the country dehumanized people suspected of using and selling drugs, we were more willing to accept some collateral damage. <\/p>\n<p>In the modern war on drugs \u2014 which dates back more than 50 years to the Nixon administration \u2014 the United States has produced laws and policies ensuring that collateral damage isn\u2019t just tolerated, it\u2019s inevitable.<\/p>\n<p>This is Episode Eight, \u201cLegalized Takings: The Land Grab That Killed Donald Scott.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<aside class=\"promote-banner\">\n <a class=\"promote-banner__link\" href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/podcasts\/collateral-damage\/\"><br \/><span class=\"promote-banner__image\"><br \/> <\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"promote-banner__text\">\n<p class=\"promote-banner__eyebrow\">\n Collateral Damage Podcast <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><br \/><\/aside>\n<p>Donald Scott led a privileged life. <\/p>\n<p>He was raised in Switzerland, attended elite prep schools in New York, and he lived off of a trust fund. <\/p>\n<p>The Scott family fortune was fueled by his grandfather\u2019s invention: Scott\u2019s Emulsion, a cod liver oil supplement marketed as a cure-all. It took off in the U.S. and Europe, and it\u2019s still popular in parts of Asia.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott\u2019s Emulsion <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/54505588\"><strong>ad:<\/strong><\/a><em> Scott\u2019s Emulsion, I like you. You help me to grow. Mmm, I like it!<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>Scott\u2019s jet-setting life was eccentric, worldly, tumultuous, and saturated with booze. He consorted with Hollywood stars and starlets, raced Ferraris, and generally relished the role of an international playboy. He bounced all over the globe. <\/p>\n<p>In the 1960s, he had a six-year relationship with the glamorous French actress Corinne Calvet. That relationship ended badly, as did his next marriage. But later in life, Scott settled down with Frances Plante, an aspiring country music singer 23 years his junior.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Frances Plante Scott\u2019s song \u201c<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.broadjam.com\/songs\/francesplantescott1\/drunk-on-pain\"><strong>Drunk on Pain<\/strong><\/a><strong>\u201d plays: <\/strong><em>I\u2019m drunk on pain. \/ It\u2019s driving me insane.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bill Aylesworth: <\/strong>Frances was from Texas, Galveston. She was a red-headed, hot-fired, wild, high-energy lunatic and absolutely gorgeous as well. Just an amazing person.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>That\u2019s Bill Aylesworth. Nearly a decade after Donald Scott was killed, Aylesworth met and became romantically involved with Plante, Scott\u2019s widow. And from her, Aylesworth became intimately familiar with the story of Trail\u2019s End.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bill Aylesworth: <\/strong>Spending that much time with her, four and a half years. I wrote a treatment for the whole thing. All I would hear is her all day long talking about it. She was obsessed with it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>Aylesworth also collaborated with Plante professionally and produced some of her music.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Frances Plante Scott\u2019s song <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=sALYsVd3peI\"><strong>\u201cI Tried It\u201d<\/strong><\/a><strong> plays: <\/strong><em>I wanna shake more than your hand, Tammy Wynette<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>Donald Scott bought the lush Malibu property known as Trail\u2019s End in the 1960s. Over the years, he\u2019d converted it into a hideaway, transforming it into a surrogate of the grand mansion he grew up in Geneva. It was also a sanctuary for his eclectic collection of books, Persian rugs, and ancient maps.<\/p>\n<p>Friends said Scott could also be incredibly generous to those he trusted. For example, gifting a collector\u2019s model 1959 Cadillac Eldorado to a friend and family attorney named Nick Gutsue. But Scott was also worn down by years of legal fights with his ex-wives over money. He grew reclusive and began drinking more heavily. He also became increasingly distrustful of the government. Scott had stopped filing federal income tax returns, and he was worried that the government had designs on the property that had become such an important part of his identity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bill Aylesworth: <\/strong>So it\u2019s 200 acres. I mean, just unbelievable, right? And it\u2019s so attractive that the park service, National Park Service, owned all of the property on either side of Donald\u2019s property.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>Trail\u2019s Ends Ranch was hidden by a dense thicket of heavily vegetated forest dominated by oak and sycamore trees. It sat in the Santa Monica Mountains, about 4 miles from the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n<p>Scott and Plante lived in a 1,000-square foot stone and wood ranch-style cabin about a quarter mile in on the property. It also included a bunkhouse and a barn. On three sides, Trail\u2019s End was framed by towering cliffs, streams, and a 75-foot waterfall. But amid all of that canopied tranquility, the creeping border of federal parkland was causing Scott persistent anxiety.<\/p>\n<p>The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area had acquired parcels bordering Scott\u2019s ranch. His relationship with the park\u2019s administrator, the National Park Service, had been contentious. Scott complained that visitors were harming his property. He said hikers would throw or kick rocks into the waterfall. Scott also suspected that the government wanted to absorb Trail\u2019s End into the parkland.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bill Aylesworth: <\/strong>It wasn\u2019t paranoia because they were actually coming up, making offers to buy it. That\u2019s not paranoid, saying, \u201cThey want to take my land.\u201d They want to take your land!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>The National Park Service denied it offered to buy the ranch or had any plans to seize or condemn it. Additional reporting over the years hasn\u2019t supported that claim. But a former park ranger and a superintendent of the park revealed Scott\u2019s land was of interest.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bill Aylesworth: <\/strong>They wanted his land, and he didn\u2019t want to sell it. So they came up with a scheme to get it for free: Just take it from him.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cThey wanted his land, and he didn\u2019t want to sell it. So they came up with a scheme to get it for free: Just take it from him.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>And Scott\u2019s land wasn\u2019t just beautiful; his 200 acres in Ventura County was worth millions. And according to a subsequent report by a Ventura County district attorney, police agencies in the area had also taken notice.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dan Alban: <\/strong>This is pretty classic policing for profit.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ij.org\/staff\/dalban\/\">Dan Alban<\/a> is a senior attorney at the libertarian law firm the Institute for Justice. He co-directs the firm\u2019s national initiative to end forfeiture abuse.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dan Alban: <\/strong>There was a $5 million estate. There was an eccentric millionaire who was suspected of somehow being involved in growing marijuana plants. And the idea was, if we can catch him in the act \u2014 catch him with these marijuana plants \u2014 then regardless of what the penalty would be for having 50 to 100 marijuana plants, we could seize the entire estate and then sell it off to someone and pocket the $5 million.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>The LA County Sheriff\u2019s Office spent nearly a year investigating Scott\u2019s alleged marijuana operation. In the end, they found nothing. Not a single plant.<\/p>\n<p>At the core of their strategy was a legal concept called civil asset forfeiture. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Dan Alban: <\/strong>Asset forfeiture law has its origins in 17th-century English maritime law. England was in a trade war at the time with various other countries, including Spain.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko:<\/strong> England passed laws saying they could seize ships or cargo that had been involved in smuggling or piracy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dan Alban: <\/strong>And the reason was if a ship was smuggling goods into your port, and you\u2019re England, you want to prosecute the owner of the ship, but the owner of the ship is very rarely on the ship. The owner of the ship is back in Lisbon or Madrid or somewhere. And so there\u2019s no way to actually exact justice on that person or deter them from behaving badly in the future. And so, because you didn\u2019t have jurisdiction over the actual people committing the criminal acts, or at least not all of them, the way to resolve that and to enforce these various customs laws that England was trying to enforce was to seize the ship, or to seize the goods, or both, and forfeit them to the crown.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>The early American colonies adopted similar asset forfeiture laws. And while the Supreme Court expanded them during the Civil War, they were used only sparingly. But that changed with alcohol prohibition in the 1920s.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dan Alban: <\/strong>The originally very narrow concept of forfeiture that was used in maritime law was expanded during Prohibition. Because during Prohibition, people weren\u2019t just smuggling in rum and alcohol by ships, but they were also bringing it over the Canadian border and the Mexican border by trucks. And so it was a natural analogy to say, \u201cOh, well, you know, they aren\u2019t ships exactly, they\u2019re sort of ships of land that have wheels on them. We\u2019re going to seize those too.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And then when the war on drugs really began in earnest in the \u201970s and \u201980s, forfeiture was pulled out again as, \u201cOh, here\u2019s a tool that we can use to scoop up as much property as we can, and anything that was somehow involved in drug trafficking or that we think was somehow involved in drug trafficking is now forfeit to the state.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>And this is where asset forfeiture really starts to go off the rails. Under the old common-law rules, law enforcement agencies could take the property of someone who had been convicted of a crime, on the theory that criminals shouldn\u2019t be enriched by ill-gotten gains. Known as criminal forfeiture, it thus required a criminal conviction.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote has-text-align-right\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>The practice of civil forfeiture \u2014 in which a conviction is not needed, just probable cause \u2014 was rarely used until the 1970s.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The practice of civil forfeiture \u2014 in which a conviction is not needed, just probable cause \u2014 was rarely used until the 1970s. That\u2019s when Congress passed bills that allowed police to seize narcotics and anything used to manufacture or distribute them.<strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As the drug war ramped up in the early 1980s, Congress introduced additional bills to expand civil forfeiture. The Comprehensive Forfeiture Act, signed into law by Ronald Reagan in 1984, allowed for a wider range of property to be eligible for seizure. It also empowered law enforcement to confiscate property like cash, vehicles, and homes, without even an arrest. A property owner would then have to contest the seizure in court in order to get their stuff back. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Dan Alban: <\/strong>They don\u2019t have to be charged with a crime. They don\u2019t have to be convicted.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko:<\/strong> But even under that 1984 law, any forfeiture proceeds still went into the U.S. Treasury\u2019s general fund. It was in 1986 that Congress added an amendment that would dramatically change drug policing in the United States \u2014 and ultimately would lead to the death of Donald Scott.<\/p>\n<p>Under the 1986 amendment, federal law enforcement agencies themselves could keep any cars, cash, or other assets that they seize. Or they can auction them off. The cash and proceeds from those auctions would then go back to both the federal law enforcement agency, and to any state or local police departments involved in the case. In Donald Scott\u2019s case, because the LA Sheriff\u2019s Department was the lead agency in the investigation, they stood to benefit the most.<\/p>\n<p>In 1986, President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=EFtc-NXSX7Y\">Ronald Reagan championed civil asset forfeiture<\/a>, arguing that it was a powerful weapon against drug dealers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ronald Reagan<\/strong>: You can increase the price by cutting down on the supply, by confiscation of the means of delivery, and so forth. The government, right now, already owns quite a fleet of yachts and airplanes and trucks and so forth that have been involved in that trade and that we have already intercepted.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>Police now had a clear financial incentive to seize property and to devote more resources to drug policing. Every drug bust now brought the potential for new police gear, office improvements, and \u201cprofessional development\u201d trips to conferences at sunny destinations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dan Alban: <\/strong>The money is sent to a dedicated fund that\u2019s controlled by DOJ and the law enforcement agencies under DOJ, like DEA and FBI, and can only be spent on what they call \u201claw enforcement purposes\u201d \u2014 which is essentially anything they want to spend money on because they\u2019re law enforcement.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>This change to incentivize police to seize property has wrought a sea change in drug policing, and it was the brainchild of a couple familiar names. One of them was an up-and-coming U.S. attorney in New York.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>This change to incentivize police to seize property has wrought a sea change in drug policing.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p><strong>Dan Alban: <\/strong>And so that change, which, yes, was championed by Rudy Giuliani. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>And another architect of the policy was a senator from Delaware named <a href=\"https:\/\/www.c-span.org\/program\/senate-highlight\/violent-crime-control-act-of-1991\/12928\">Joe Biden<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe Biden: <\/strong>We changed the law so that if you are arrested and you are a drug dealer, under our forfeiture statutes, you can, the government can take everything you own. Everything from your car to your house, your bank account. Not merely what they confiscate in terms of the dollars from the transaction that you just got caught engaging in. They can take everything.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote has-text-align-right\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cIt suddenly became this free-for-all where any property that you could find that you thought was somehow connected to a crime, you would seize and try to forfeit because at the end of the day, your agency \u2026 got the proceeds.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p><strong>Dan Alban: <\/strong>That law, as well as a few others that were passed around the same time in the early to mid-\u201980s, really changed how civil forfeiture was used in the United States. Instead of it being this kind of obscure area of law that was very rarely used and only in exceptional circumstances when you can\u2019t actually bring the perpetrator within your jurisdiction, it suddenly became this free-for-all where any property that you could find that you thought was somehow connected to a crime, you would seize and try to forfeit because at the end of the day, your agency \u2014 or at least DOJ, which your agency was under \u2014 got the proceeds from that forfeiture.<\/p>\n<p>And so this created this huge off-budget slush fund that DOJ and its agencies could use to fund all sorts of things. And many states followed suit, creating their own funds or allowing counties to create their own funds, so that at the state and county levels, this same profit incentive was replicated all across the country. And that led to a huge explosion in forfeiture.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>Forfeiture proceeds are basically slush funds for police and prosecutors. In many jurisdictions, there\u2019s little oversight or accounting. Over the years, police officials have spent forfeiture funds on purchases that you might say aren\u2019t exactly critical to the practice of law enforcement.<\/p>\n<p>One district attorney in Texas used forfeiture money to purchase kegs of beer, bottles of rum and tequila, and a margarita machine for his office. A South Carolina sheriff\u2019s office spent $26,000 investigating a strip club \u2014 just good old fashioned police work involving lap dances and $300 bottles of champagne.<\/p>\n<p>When the investigation of Donald Scott began, California police agencies were operating under this forfeiture-driven drug policy. Whatever they could seize, up to 80 percent of it would essentially become theirs.<\/p>\n<p>As reporter Lynn Sherr reported in her \u201c20\/20\u201d investigation into Scott\u2019s death, there were plenty of reasons for the sheriff\u2019s department to be looking for sources of revenue.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lynn Sherr: <\/strong>LA County was in a fiscal crisis. With the upcoming budget a billion dollars short, the sheriff\u2019s department was being hit hard. So like other law-enforcement agencies around the country, it relied more on the proceeds of drug investigations to supplement the budget.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>The investigation of Trail\u2019s End unfolded over the course of a year. But six months after Scott\u2019s death, the Ventura County District Attorney\u2019s Office, led by Michael Bradbury, released a report that began to connect the dots.<\/p>\n<p>The ABC News show \u201c20\/20\u201d also played a key role in bringing public attention to the missteps by the LA County Sheriff\u2019s Department. We\u2019ll refer back to that episode throughout this story \u2014 not only because of its reporting, but because it includes one of the few in-depth interviews Frances Plante gave at the time.<\/p>\n<p>We made numerous attempts to reach Plante for this story, but we were unable to track her down. And then, as we were producing this episode, we learned that she had recently passed away.<\/p>\n<p>Plante\u2019s \u201c20\/20\u201d interview will be the only account from her that you\u2019ll hear.<\/p>\n<p><!-- BLOCK(cta)[0](%7B%22componentName%22%3A%22CTA%22%2C%22entityType%22%3A%22SHORTCODE%22%2C%22optional%22%3Atrue%7D)(%7B%7D) --><\/p>\n<p><!-- END-BLOCK(cta)[0] --><\/p>\n<p>The investigation of Trail\u2019s End began with an LA sheriff\u2019s department deputy named Gary Spencer. District Attorney Bradbury\u2019s investigation found that Spencer claimed to have received an anonymous tip that a woman named Frances Plante had been acting suspiciously around town in Malibu.<\/p>\n<p>Plante hadn\u2019t broken any laws, but Spencer claimed that the informant told him Plante was carrying lots of cash, paying for small items with $100 bills, and had been tipping generously.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, Malibu is filled with eclectic and extraordinarily wealthy people. So it seems unlikely that tipping well and flaunting wealth would be unusual there. But Spencer saw these as signs of possible drug dealing. Spencer would later falsely assert in an affidavit that Plante\u2019s car was registered to Donald Scott. Plante\u2019s car was actually registered in Nevada, and Scott\u2019s name was nowhere in the paperwork. <\/p>\n<p>In September 1992, 10 months after the tip about Plante, Spencer claimed he received another tip from an informant who was never publicly identified. The informant told him there were 3,000 to 4,000 marijuana plants growing on Scott\u2019s property. Spencer also claimed to have learned that Frances and an associate were allegedly linked to investigations into heroin and other narcotics smuggling.<\/p>\n<p>So Spencer started investigating.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bill Aylesworth: <\/strong>The lead was Gary Spencer. The whole thing was orchestrated by him. And he\u2019s the guy who ended up killing Donald Scott. It was this guy who thought it would be a feather in his cap, his star would rise. The department needed money at the time. He was very ambitious.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>On September 10, 1992, Spencer and two deputies hiked to the top of the waterfall on Scott\u2019s ranch to look for those thousands of marijuana plants. They found nothing. <\/p>\n<p>Spencer then requested a California Air National Guard plane fly over the ranch to look for a pot farm and to snap photos. Those photos didn\u2019t show much. At best, a DEA analyst named Charles Stowell said there might be some visual evidence of a small illegal water system. But even an unlawful set of water pipes could have been used to grow any number of perfectly legal plants. And as it turns out, there was really no irrigation system at all.<\/p>\n<p>On a second flight two weeks later, DEA Agent Stowell claimed to have seen 50 marijuana plants. But for reasons that aren\u2019t clear, he didn\u2019t take any photos. Finally, Spencer asked a Forest Ranger to assemble a ground team to hike onto Scott\u2019s property to find the plants. And for some reason, they contacted the U.S. Border Patrol to assist.<\/p>\n<p>This new ground team got within 150 feet of Scott\u2019s house but told Spencer that they saw no marijuana. They also said it was extremely unlikely that there were 3,000 plants growing on the property.<\/p>\n<p>According to Bradbury\u2019s investigation, as Spencer was building his case, he also sent a park ranger and a sheriff\u2019s sergeant to Scott\u2019s property under false pretenses. The ranger had previously responded to a complaint Frances Plante had made to the National Park Service.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote has-text-align-left\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>Spencer told them to pretend to be interested in adopting a puppy from the Scotts.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Spencer told them to pretend to be interested in adopting a puppy from the Scotts. In reality, they were there to provide a threat assessment on the property. In other words, he wanted them to tell him what sort of force he would need to use when serving his search warrant.<\/p>\n<p>Spencer finally got his search warrant on October 1, 1992, but only after telling the DEA that his mysterious informant\u2019s story had changed. Forget the thousands of plants \u2014 the informant now reportedly said that Scott was growing only enough plants to yield about 40 pounds of pot. By DEA estimates, that would have amounted to about 50 plants. So the new story conveniently aligned with what the DEA agent improbably claimed to have spotted during his flight.<\/p>\n<p>The informant would later deny that this particular conversation ever happened, though that was also disputed by the sheriff\u2019s department. Bradbury\u2019s investigation found other problems with Spencer\u2019s search warrant affidavit. For example, Spencer had omitted the fact that two ground teams had visited the property and failed to spot any marijuana. <\/p>\n<p>Spencer also wrote that DEA Agent Stowell had used binoculars when he claimed to have spotted the 50 or so pot plants. But there were no binoculars. Stowell claimed to have seen them from 1,000 feet in the air with the naked eye. A Forest Service employee with extensive aerial surveillance experience would later say that to do so from a plane like that would be like \u201cseeing a corn dog sticking out of the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Michael Bradbury: <\/strong>There is virtually no way that Stowell could have seen through that canopy of trees. It\u2019s like a rainforest. It\u2019s impenetrable.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>That\u2019s Ventura County District Attorney Michael Bradbury picking apart Spencer\u2019s case with \u201c20\/20\u201d reporter Lynn Sherr.<\/p>\n<p>So to summarize, Spencer obtained a search warrant based on a DEA agent\u2019s improbable claim to have spotted 50 pot plants from 1,000 feet with the naked eye. But he failed to photograph it, and he wasn\u2019t certain about what he\u2019d seen.<\/p>\n<p>Spencer then corroborated that with an unidentified informant who revised the number of plants he claimed to have seen on Scott\u2019s property from several thousand to just 50. <\/p>\n<p>While Spencer claimed that the DEA agent had spotted the plants, he failed to note that two ground teams failed to find any plants when they visited the property in person.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Michael Bradbury: <\/strong>He provided misinformation to the magistrate, and he left out a lot of very material facts that would have indicated to the magistrate that in fact marijuana was not being cultivated there. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>But with the warrant in hand, Spencer then began planning his raid. Remember how he had previously sent those park rangers to visit the property and make a threat assessment?<\/p>\n<p>Well, those rangers concluded that a SWAT team wasn\u2019t necessary. \u201cJust drive up to the house and the Scotts would let them inside.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But that isn\u2019t what happened.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bill Aylesworth: <\/strong>This guy was a cowboy, Gary Spencer. He\u2019s not a guy who\u2019s gonna hang around and talk about procedures, you know, \u201cWe\u2019re gonna go in, we\u2019re gonna arrest him, we\u2019re gonna take his weed and his property.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>There\u2019s other evidence that forfeiture was a prime motivator in Spencer\u2019s investigation. About a month before the raid, deputies had also been given documents that included a property appraisal of the ranch, and that included a handwritten notation that an 80-acre plot of land nearby had recently sold for $800,000. It also pointed out that the Trail\u2019s End Ranch covered 200 acres.<\/p>\n<p><!-- BLOCK(newsletter)[0](%7B%22componentName%22%3A%22NEWSLETTER%22%2C%22entityType%22%3A%22SHORTCODE%22%2C%22optional%22%3Atrue%7D)(%7B%7D) --><\/p>\n<div class=\"newsletter-embed flex-col items-center print:hidden\" id=\"third-party--article-mid\" data-module=\"InlineNewsletter\" data-module-source=\"web_intercept_20241230_Inline_Signup_Replacement\">\n<div class=\"-mx-5 sm:-mx-10 p-5 sm:px-10 xl:-ml-5 lg:mr-0 xl:px-5 bg-accentLight hidden\" data-name=\"subscribed\">\n<h2 class=\"font-sans font-light uppercase text-[30px] leading-8 text-white tracking-[0.01em] mb-0\">\n We\u2019re independent of corporate interests \u2014 and powered by members. Join us. <\/h2>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/join.theintercept.com\/donate\/now\/?referrer_post_id=503854&referrer_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheintercept.com%2F2025%2F12%2F03%2Fcollateral-damage-episode-eight-legalized-takings%2F&source=web_intercept_20241230_Inline_Signup_Replacement\" class=\"border border-white !text-white font-mono uppercase p-5 inline-flex items-center gap-3 hover:bg-white hover:!text-accentLight focus:bg-white focus:!text-accentLight\" data-name=\"donateCTA\" data-action=\"handleDonate\"><br \/>\n Become a member <span class=\"font-icons icon-TI_Arrow_02_Right\"\/><br \/>\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n<div class=\"group default w-full px-5 hidden\" data-name=\"unsubscribed\">\n<div class=\"px-5 border-[10px] border-accentLight\">\n<div class=\"bg-white -my-2.5 relative block px-4 md:px-5\">\n<h2 class=\"font-sans font-body text-[30px] font-bold tracking-[0.01em] leading-8 mb-0 xl:text-[37px] xl:leading-[39px]\">\n <span class=\"group-[.subscribed]:hidden\"><br \/>\n Join Our Newsletter <\/span><br \/>\n <span class=\"group-[.default]:hidden\"><br \/>\n Thank You For Joining! <\/span><br \/>\n <\/h2>\n<p class=\"text-[27px] mb-3.5 font-bold text-accentLight tracking-[0.01em] leading-[29px] font-sans xl:text-[37px] xl:leading-[39px]\">\n <span class=\"group-[.subscribed]:hidden\"><br \/>\n Original reporting. Fearless journalism. Delivered to you. <\/span><br \/>\n <span class=\"group-[.default]:hidden\"><br \/>\n Will you take the next step to support our independent journalism by becoming a member of The Intercept? <\/span>\n <\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/join.theintercept.com\/donate\/now\/?referrer_post_id=503854&referrer_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheintercept.com%2F2025%2F12%2F03%2Fcollateral-damage-episode-eight-legalized-takings%2F&source=web_intercept_20241230_Inline_Signup_Replacement\" class=\"group-[.default]:hidden border border-accentLight text-accentLight font-sans px-5 py-3.5 inline-flex items-center gap-3 text-[20px] font-bold\" data-action=\"handleDonate\"><br \/>\n Become a member <span class=\"font-icons icon-TI_Arrow_02_Right\"\/><br \/>\n <\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"font-sans text-accentLight text-[10px] leading-[13px] text-balance [&_a]:text-accentLight [&_a]:font-bold [&_a:hover]:underline group-[.subscribed]:hidden\">\n<p>By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/privacy-policy\/\">Privacy Policy<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/terms-use\/\">Terms of Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- END-BLOCK(newsletter)[0] --><\/p>\n<p><strong>[Break]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>Just after sunrise on October 2, 1992, 31 people from at least eight government and law enforcement agencies gathered in the Malibu office of the LA Sheriff\u2019s Department for a briefing. At least two people at that briefing heard it mentioned that if the raid produced marijuana plants, the police agencies could seize Scott\u2019s entire property under asset forfeiture laws.<\/p>\n<p>So the 15-vehicle caravan then made its way to Trail\u2019s End. At 8:30 a.m., they cut a padlock off the outer gate. Several of the officers would later say that they had knocked and announced themselves for somewhere between 1 and 4 minutes. According to police, when no one answered, a team of five deputies then forced their way into the home with a crowbar and a battering ram.<\/p>\n<p>Spencer was the first one through the door.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bill Aylesworth: <\/strong>And she starts screaming. So, you hear your wife screaming. Obviously, you\u2019re gonna grab your gun and go down and see what\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>According to Spencer, Scott came out holding a .38-caliber snub-nosed revolver. He was holding it above his head, in his right hand, as if he were going to hit someone with it, not shoot it. According to Plante, Scott was still recovering from an eye surgery he\u2019d had a few days earlier, and he couldn\u2019t see well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bill Aylesworth: <\/strong>They tell him, \u201cPut down the gun. Put down the gun.\u201d And so literally, the order they gave him is also the reason they used for killing him. Because he had a handgun, as he was putting it down, they blew him away.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>Spencer said he told Scott to drop the gun three times, though he admits he never identified himself as a police officer once Scott entered the room. According to Spencer, as Scott brought the gun down, he rotated it until it was pointing at Spencer. That\u2019s when Spencer fired. Deputy John Cater fired next. Then Spencer fired another round. According to Spencer, Scott lurched backward, stammered, and fell. He died instantly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Capt. Richard DeWitt: <\/strong>Captain DeWitt here. <strong><br \/>Dispatch: <\/strong>Yeah.<br \/><strong>Capt. Richard Dewitt: <\/strong>I\u2019m on a search warrant with the Hidden Hills crew on this marijuana eradication thing.<br \/><strong>Dispatch: <\/strong>Yes.<strong><br \/>Capt. Richard DeWitt: <\/strong>And they just \u2014 Looks like 927D here.<br \/><strong>Dispatch: <\/strong>At the location?<strong><br \/>Capt. Richard DeWitt:<\/strong> Yeah.<br \/><strong>Dispatch: <\/strong>Some bodies there?<br \/><strong>Capt. Richard DeWitt: <\/strong>No, we put \u2019em down.<br \/><strong>Dispatch: <\/strong>We killed him? <strong><br \/>Capt. Richard DeWitt: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bill Aylesworth: <\/strong>They\u2019re basically saying, \u201cYeah, we killed him.\u201d And then you could hear how surprised they were on the other end. They\u2019re like, \u201cYou mean the property owner?\u201d They were just, like, shocked. \u201cThe property owner? He\u2019s dead? You shot him?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>Frances Plante would later use that recording in a song she created and produced with Aylesworth. They called it \u201cI\u2019m Going to Stop You.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>[<strong>Frances Plante Scott\u2019s song<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/iuma-frances_plante_scott\/Frances_Plante_Scott_-_Im_Going_To_Stop_You.mp3\"><strong>\u201cI\u2019m Going to Stop You\u201d<\/strong><\/a><strong> plays<\/strong>]<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bill Aylesworth: <\/strong>At the very beginning of the song before a song even starts, we have the actual recording to the headquarters.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Verse from \u201cI\u2019m Going to Stop You\u201d plays: <\/strong><em>We killed him, we killed him. We killed him.<\/em> <\/p>\n<p><strong>Bill Aylesworth: <\/strong>Malibu sheriff headquarters saying, \u201cYeah, we killed the subject.\u201d \u201cKilled the subject? What do you mean?\u201d on that record we recorded and released. And I named the album \u201cConspiracy Cocktail\u201d because all the songs she wrote were about the government and what happened to her.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Frances Plante Scott\u2019s <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/iuma-frances_plante_scott\/Frances_Plante_Scott_-_Im_Going_To_Stop_You.mp3\"><strong>\u201cI\u2019m Going to Stop You\u201d<\/strong><\/a><strong> continues playing: <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>I\u2019m going to stop you<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Do we defend ourselves from you<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Protect and serve you\u2019re supposed to do<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>I\u2019m going to stop you \u2026 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>There were a number of inconsistencies about where Donald Scott\u2019s hand and gun were pointing when he was shot. What\u2019s undisputed is that the subsequent search of Scott\u2019s property not only turned up no marijuana plants, or other narcotics, it also turned up no unusual or illegal irrigation systems. There were no ropes. There was nothing hanging from the trees that could have supported a grow operation. Frances Plante would later say, dryly, that when the police asked where the plants were, she responded, \u201cI\u2019m the only Plante here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Spencer later claimed deputies found a cigar box with marijuana stems, two charred joints, and some residue that may have been pot. But there\u2019s no mention of that on the evidence return sheet, which is supposed to list everything seized during the search. And Spencer later couldn\u2019t say where the box was found. <\/p>\n<p>Trail\u2019s End was in Ventura County, yet the investigation into Donald Scott\u2019s nonexistent marijuana farm and the raid that ended his life were conducted by the sheriff\u2019s office in neighboring Los Angeles County. The fallout from his death would pit two veteran California law enforcement officials against each other in a way that became very nasty and very public.<\/p>\n<p>Soon after Scott\u2019s death, Ventura County District Attorney Michael Bradbury announced that he\u2019d be launching an investigation. Six months later, he issued his scathing report. <\/p>\n<p>It was about as damning a document as one law enforcement agency could publish about another. Bradbury then defended his report in the media.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Barbara Walters: <\/strong>This week, investigators examining the case issued their report. The findings are explosive, as you are about to hear in the conclusion of Lynn Sherr\u2019s report.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Michael Bradbury: <\/strong>Donald Scott did not have to die. He should not have died. He\u2019s an unfortunate victim in the war on drugs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko:<\/strong> Bradbury\u2019s report said that the U.S. Border Patrol had no jurisdiction to be involved in the case and criticized its agents for trespassing on Scott\u2019s property. He was also hard on DEA Agent Charles Stowell, saying, \u201cHe was either lying or not sure that he saw marijuana.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But Bradbury saved most of his criticism for Deputy Gary Spencer, writing, \u201cThis search warrant became Donald Scott\u2019s death warrant.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote has-text-align-right\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cThis search warrant became Donald Scott\u2019s death warrant.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>After outlining the numerous discrepancies in Spencer\u2019s affidavit, Bradbury\u2019s report concluded, \u201cthe misstatements and omissions discussed above are material and would invalidate the warrant.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bradbury also wrote that there were numerous reasons to doubt Spencer\u2019s version of events. Although, he advised against perjury charges for the deputy.<\/p>\n<p>He also questioned the LA County Sheriff\u2019s Department\u2019s motives. When Bradbury\u2019s report came out, the Los Angeles County sheriff was a reserved man named Sherman Block.<\/p>\n<p>In a written statement, Block condemned the report, which he said was filled with \u201cconjecture and supposition\u201d and reeked of \u201csensationalism.\u201d He also accused Bradbury of having \u201ca complete lack of understanding of the nature of narcotics investigations.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>And Block questioned Bradbury\u2019s motivations, pointing out that the report was released just as ABC News was airing that \u201c20\/20\u201d report on the Scott case.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Announcer: <\/strong>Tonight, a Lynn Sherr investigation: Why did Donald Scott die?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>Block conducted his own internal inquiry into the raid, which disputed all of Bradbury\u2019s findings. He completely exonerated Spencer, his deputies, and DEA Agent Stowell, and argued that a 1,000-foot aerial naked-eye sighting of marijuana plants is both possible and \u201cideal.\u201d According to Block, Bradbury\u2019s own tape-recorded interview with the informant revealed that the informant never denied telling Spencer about the 40 pounds of marijuana on the ranch.<\/p>\n<p>Block concluded that Spencer did not lie to obtain the search warrant, and wrote, \u201cIt is not true that the interest in forfeiture dominated or even rivaled the criminal concerns in this investigation.\u201d He accused Bradbury of \u201cwillful distortions of fact\u201d and of attacking \u201cthe integrity of veteran law enforcement officials.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But Bradbury wasn\u2019t the type to needlessly attack law enforcement. He was a law-and-order Republican. His memoir, published a few years ago, included photos of himself with Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Margaret Thatcher, and various other conservative luminaries of the 1980s and 1990s.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s most striking about Block\u2019s investigation is that it lacks any introspections. Three months before the Scott raid, Block\u2019s department was strongly criticized for a series of fatal shootings. A 359-page report commissioned by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors found \u201cdeeply disturbing evidence of excessive force and lax discipline.\u201d The report described a culture of lawlessness among sheriff\u2019s deputies and a reluctance by Block and his top aides to hold them accountable.<\/p>\n<p>Now, Block\u2019s deputies had killed another innocent man. And even assuming everything his Deputy Gary Spencer put in the original affidavit was correct \u2014 and we know that it wasn\u2019t \u2014 Block\u2019s officers had gunned down a man in his own home over 50 marijuana plants that they never found.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\">\n<blockquote>\n<p> Block\u2019s officers had gunned down a man in his own home over 50 marijuana plants that they never found.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>After his investigation, Block continued to reject Bradbury\u2019s conclusions. He expressed no remorse or willingness to examine the policies that allowed the killing of an innocent 61-year-old man over what was at most, a few dozen pounds of cannabis. He never questioned the appropriateness of deploying a huge raid team with personnel from several agencies who had never worked together. Even if they had found the pot they claimed Scott possessed, the manpower that morning would have amounted to one law enforcement officer for each 1.7 marijuana plants.<\/p>\n<p>Block even sent his report to the California attorney general, and requested an inquiry into Bradbury for abusing his powers. Despite the botched raid and death of an innocent man, the state attorney general backed Sheriff Block. He also cleared Spencer and disputed Bradbury\u2019s report, accusing him of using \u201cunsupported and provocative language.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Law enforcement officers have <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/podcasts\/collateral-damage\/\">killed a lot of people<\/a> in the name of the war on drugs. And it probably goes without saying that most of them aren\u2019t rich, white, eccentric millionaires. Studies have consistently shown that the people targeted by these policies \u2014 from forfeiture to <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/10\/08\/collateral-damage-episode-one-dirty-business\/\">aggressive home invasions<\/a> by police \u2014 are disproportionately poor and Black. But it tends to be cases like Scott\u2019s that attract media and public attention, because the public tends to find them more sympathetic.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dan Alban: <\/strong>Although the Donald T. Scott case is one of the maybe more extreme or memorable examples, it\u2019s one that I think hits home for a lot of people \u2014 because they realize, \u201cThat could have been me.\u201d Like, if police come charging into my house, and I don\u2019t know that they\u2019re there, and I hear my wife screaming, am I going to try to come to her aid? And if so, am I going to get shot? And could it be over something that I had no fault in? Absolutely it could.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>Civil asset forfeiture policies gave Deputy Spencer a strong incentive to conclude that Donald Scott was guilty. It also incentivized him to look for evidence to support that conclusion \u2014 instead of the other way around. Bradbury called it a \u201cfishing expedition.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Throughout making this episode, we tried to get a comment from Spencer, but we were unable to reach him through publicly available information.<\/p>\n<p>Donald Scott had no criminal record. And after his death, friends and acquaintances told media outlets that he wasn\u2019t fond of illicit drugs. That\u2019s something they might also have told investigators if they had bothered to ask. <\/p>\n<p>The possibility of civil asset forfeiture pushes drug cops in one direction: to produce evidence of a target\u2019s guilt. There\u2019s little incentive to search for exculpatory evidence, especially once they\u2019ve invested some time and resources in the investigation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dan Alban: <\/strong>So forfeiture absolutely distorts the priorities of law enforcement agencies and drives a lot of activities that they would not otherwise engage in. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote has-text-align-right\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>Forfeiture \u201cdiverts all kinds of resources into things that have nothing to do with actual crime prevention and are instead are much more oriented toward revenue generation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko:<\/strong> Alban says there\u2019s data showing that when law enforcement revenue increases due to forfeiture, there\u2019s a corresponding decrease in the rate at which they close crimes like murder or robbery.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dan Alban: <\/strong>One of the things that folks who are really sort of pro-law enforcement or pro-law-and-order often fail to fully appreciate about the dangers of the profit incentive in forfeiture is, it\u2019s not just something that gives the police more tools to fight crime. It\u2019s something that distorts law enforcement priorities, distracts them from what they\u2019re supposed to be doing, and diverts all kinds of resources into things that have nothing to do with actual crime prevention and are instead are much more oriented toward revenue generation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko:<\/strong> That means more unsolved violent crimes. Which means less public confidence in the police. And that only feeds the cycle of mistrust between cops and marginalized communities.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dan Alban: <\/strong>There are a number of studies that have shown that civil forfeiture and the aggressive use of civil forfeiture has caused distrust in minority and low-income communities because it\u2019s viewed as enabling the police to just steal from people \u2014 and particularly to just steal from the poorest, the people who have the least resources and who are most vulnerable. <\/p>\n<p>Not only are they the ones who are sort of hit hardest by it, but they\u2019re also the ones least able to defend themselves because they have less access to attorneys or to the political system that might enable them to call some of these things into question or have politicians start investigations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>The city of Philadelphia is a particularly compelling case study. That city has been home to a long-running forfeiture abuse scandal first exposed in 2014. <\/p>\n<p><strong>CNN: <\/strong>In two years, nearly 500 families in Philadelphia had their homes or cars taken away by city officials, according to Pennsylvania\u2019s attorney general. They use a civil forfeiture law that allows them to \u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dan Alban: <\/strong>The court allowed us to do a survey of the victims of Philly\u2019s forfeiture program \u2014 the first survey that\u2019s ever been done of all of the victims of a single forfeiture program. And in that case, only about 1 in 4 respondents was actually found guilty or pled guilty to any wrongdoing, yet they all had their property seized and forfeited.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>Alban\u2019s organization brought a class-action suit in Philadelphia on behalf of <a href=\"https:\/\/casetext.com\/case\/sourovelis-v-city-of-phila-5\">thousands<\/a> of local residents who\u2019d had their cars, homes, and cash seized by police.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dan Alban: <\/strong>The lead plaintiffs in that case were the Sourovelis family, whose son had gotten into trouble. He was selling a few hundred dollars worth of drugs, and he was keeping it in a backpack in his bedroom. And one day, the Philly PD raided the house, told the family they had just a few minutes to pack up everything and get out, and that the house was going to be seized and sealed for forfeiture because their son had, of course, unbeknownst to them, been selling relatively small amounts of drugs. And this was, of course, horrifying to the family. They thought they were going to lose their entire house over this.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>Alban\u2019s group was able to save the Sourovelis family home. But he says that case is part of a pattern, where small offenses can lead to life-altering losses, often to people who had no involvement in the underlying crime.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dan Alban: <\/strong>Many of those instances were people who obviously had no idea that their grandson, or whoever was staying with them, was involved in illegal activity and certainly didn\u2019t condone it. But they didn\u2019t have legal resources to fight back. And so there were, I think, 80 to 100 properties that ended up being forfeited from people, many of whom weren\u2019t actually accused of committing that crime. And that same sort of scenario plays out time and time again across the country.<\/p>\n<p>Probably the most common scenario is, you know, the mom lets their son or daughter borrow the family car or minivan. They\u2019re at the park and get caught selling some weed to their friends or something. The police not only seize the weed, of course, and the money \u2014 but also the family car.<\/p>\n<p>And then mom is stuck in this terrible position where, you know, she of course wasn\u2019t allowing her kid to use the minivan for illegal purposes, but now doesn\u2019t have a car, can\u2019t get to work, can\u2019t get the kids to school, can\u2019t get to the grocery store, to run other errands \u2014 but isn\u2019t actually a person accused of the crime.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>In 2000, Congress passed some reforms to federal forfeiture law, including an \u201cinnocent owner defense\u201d that owners of seized property can use. But it\u2019s almost impossible to prove a negative. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Dan Alban: <\/strong>It\u2019s proving something like, \u201cI didn\u2019t want my son to use the family minivan to deal drugs.\u201d How do you actually prove that? It\u2019s not like you probably sent him a text message saying, \u201cNow son, I don\u2019t want you to use the family minivan to use drugs.\u201d So satisfying that burden of proof is very difficult.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>The bill also failed to mandate a conviction for asset forfeiture or curb the profit incentive driving it. Weaker federal reforms and sharing agreements have allowed police to bypass tougher state forfeiture laws. <\/p>\n<p>There are long-standing questions about how law enforcement agencies use the proceeds of civil asset forfeiture. Critics say the lure has pushed police to become more aggressive and more militarized.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dan Alban: <\/strong>We\u2019ve seen lots of those sort of surplus military vehicles, [Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles], and other sorts of things purchased with forfeiture funds. Lots of military or pseudo-military equipment. In Philadelphia, for example, the Philadelphia police department used forfeiture funds to buy, I think, about two dozen submachine guns and to pay for a range that they were using for those automatic weapons.<\/p>\n<p>If you know that your city council or county board or the state legislature isn\u2019t going to approve you buying a BearCat armored vehicle or something similar, you can nonetheless purchase that same vehicle, using forfeiture funds. And that sort of thing happens all the time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>And once cops have this gear, they want to use it. So the equipment then gets used in more drug raids, which results in more seized property, which results in more revenue to buy more gear. It\u2019s a self-perpetuating cycle. It can also just be a waste of public resources.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dan Alban: <\/strong>A lot of the time with the armored vehicles, the various militarized equipment, the submachine guns, that kind of stuff \u2014 those are things that are tremendous fun to play with, may not have much practical use or practical value to many police departments.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>The use of civil asset forfeiture isn\u2019t limited to drug crimes. But the drug war is by far the biggest driver of the policy. <\/p>\n<p>In about the time between Congress loosening asset forfeiture laws in 1984 and Scott\u2019s death, law enforcement authorities nationwide had seized roughly $3 billion in assets. In Los Angeles County alone, about $205 million was taken by law enforcement. In the five years before Donald Scott\u2019s death in 1992, the county averaged more than $30 million a year in seizures.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PBS \u201cFrontline\u201d: <\/strong>In 1987, the sheriff\u2019s department seized more than $26 million in drug money, another $33 million in 1988.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>In 1990, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/pages\/frontline\/shows\/drugs\/archive\/copsgobad.html\">PBS show \u201cFrontline\u201d<\/a> aired an investigation about how the drug war was corrupting police officers throughout the country.<strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Dan Garner: <\/strong>You see that there\u2019s big money out there, you want to seize the big money for your department. For our unit, that was a sign of whether you were doing good or poorly, was how much money you seized and the kind of cases you did. And my supervisor made it extremely clear that big money cases were a lot more favorable for your overall evaluation than big dope cases.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>In a 1993 interview, the head of narcotics at the LA sheriff\u2019s department <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/archives\/la-xpm-1993-08-01-tm-19145-story.html\">told the LA Times<\/a> that the salaries of 24 of the unit\u2019s 200 officers were funded entirely with forfeiture proceeds. And the top forfeiture prosecutor in the state attorney general\u2019s office said drug war asset forfeiture can \u201cbecome addictive to law enforcement.\u201d He then added, apparently without irony, \u201cIt\u2019s a little like crack.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The addiction isn\u2019t just institutional. That much loose cash can also be a temptation for police officers to slide into corruption, seizing and keeping property for themselves. Donald Scott\u2019s death, in fact, followed a larger department-wide scandal in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PBS \u201cFrontline\u201d: <\/strong>Seven sheriff\u2019s deputies are now on trial in Los Angeles, charged with stealing $1.4 million in drug money. More than 30 narcotics officers here have been implicated in the largest current police corruption scandal in the country.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>Most of the charges were related to deputies skimming the cash they confiscated in drug busts, which they then used to buy cars, vacations, and even new homes. And the LA County sheriff at the time? It was Sherman Block.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sheriff<\/strong> <strong>Sherman Block: <\/strong>I think we had individuals who succumbed to temptation, who somehow, I\u2019m sure, in their own minds, they probably were able to rationalize what they were doing was not really wrong, since the individuals who they were dealing with were not honorable people in themself.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>None of the police officers involved in the killing of Donald Scott were ever disciplined for the raid itself. Deputy Gary Spencer sued Bradbury, the Ventura County DA, for defamation. When the suit was dismissed, he was ordered to pay Bradbury\u2019s legal fees of about $50,000. Spencer later declared bankruptcy. \u201cI was made out to be this callous, reckless, Dirty Harry kind of guy, and I wasn\u2019t able to say anything about it,\u201d Spencer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/archives\/la-xpm-1997-nov-28-me-58589-story.html\">told the Los Angeles Times<\/a> in 1997.<\/p>\n<p>Spencer did express regret for Scott\u2019s death. And he would go on to say that the raid ruined his life. He told the LA Times that he developed a twitch in response to stress from the case, and that his children had to defend his reputation to their classmates. Still, Spencer continued to defend the raid, saying that he didn\u2019t consider it botched because \u201cthat would say that it was a mistake to have gone in there in the first place, and I don\u2019t believe that.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Michael Bradbury deserves a lot of credit in this story. He was a rising star in Republican politics when the Scott raid went down. He saw a problem in law enforcement that had caused a tragedy, and he tried to do something about it.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s Bradbury again speaking to \u201c20\/20.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Michael Bradbury: <\/strong>When you keep that information out of a warrant, you deprive the judge of making an informed decision. And in fact that can, and in this case did, in our opinion, invalidate the warrant.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>When I first reached out to Bradbury, who is now in his 80s, he initially agreed to be interviewed for this podcast. But after consulting with his attorney, he told us that he would have to decline. It seems that Spencer is still around too, and Bradbury\u2019s attorney feared that Spencer could still sue Bradbury for defaming him.<\/p>\n<p>But in our initial phone conversation, Bradbury also told me something that hasn\u2019t been widely reported about this case. In 2001, the George W. Bush administration contacted Bradbury and asked if he\u2019d accept a nomination to be U.S. attorney for the district of Southern California. For a DA like Bradbury, this was a major promotion. Bradbury said he\u2019d be honored, and he traveled to Washington to meet with White House officials. But when he arrived, he was told that the administration had changed its mind. According to Bradbury, the LA Sheriff\u2019s Department had complained, citing the Scott case, and scuttled the nomination.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bill Aylesworth: <\/strong>Frances is the one who really became like a political activist and stayed on the property and armed herself, and they kept coming, doing harassment, raids, all kinds of crazy stuff.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>Things would get worse for Frances Plante. After Donald Scott died, Plante inherited only a portion of Trail\u2019s End. And she struggled to buy out the portion that went to his other family members. A little more than a year after the raid, the Malibu fires of 1993 then ravaged every manmade structure on the property. The fire also destroyed an urn containing Donald Scott\u2019s ashes. Broke and heartbroken, Plante vowed to press on.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bill Aylesworth: <\/strong>They thought, well, she\u2019s going to leave now for sure. And she didn\u2019t. She bought a tipi from like a tribe up in Oregon or something. You can see pictures of her online in front of her tipi holding a shotgun in her wedding dress. And she really got into it \u2014 the whole political activism thing about the asset forfeiture. And she wanted to get it out there that this is happening and stop it. So she was on \u201c20\/20.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lynn Sherr: <\/strong>Today, Frances takes little pleasure from this land. The memories of her husband and his love for these hills have now dissolved into the painful reality of one morning in October.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Frances Plante Scott: <\/strong>I\u2019m not sailing off into the sunset with Donald Scott, so I\u2019m stuck here, and I\u2019m going to stay here and keep the land just like Donald did all these years.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>In 1993, Plante, Donald Scott\u2019s estate, and his children filed a civil rights lawsuit against the various police agencies and deputies involved in the raid. The authorities dragged out the lawsuit for years, causing Plante to rack up massive legal debts.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dan Alban: <\/strong>And so while Donald Scott, the raid on his house and his ranch, was over 30 years ago. It\u2019s something that we haven\u2019t fixed. We haven\u2019t really addressed, and that\u2019s one of the reasons why there needs to be substantial reforms made at the federal level, made at the state level.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>Alban\u2019s organization, the Institute for Justice, launched an \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/ij.org\/legislative-advocacy\/civil-forfeiture-legislative-highlights\/#:~:text=In%202014%2C%20IJ%20launched%20its,and%20courts%20of%20public%20opinion.\">End Forfeiture Initiative<\/a>\u201d in 2014. And since then, there have been significant changes. Three states: New Mexico, Nebraska, and Maine have abolished civil forfeiture completely. And that\u2019s in addition to North Carolina\u2019s ban which dates back to 1985. <\/p>\n<p>Thirty-seven states, plus the District of Columbia, have reformed their civil forfeiture laws to some degree. One of the most popular changes include requiring a criminal conviction before seizing property \u2014 a measure that, arguably, should have been a foundational principle from the outset.<\/p>\n<p>But many of these piecemeal changes have fallen short of fully protecting people\u2019s money and property. According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/ij.org\/report\/policing-for-profit-3\/pfp3content\/executive-summary\/\">Institute for Justice<\/a>, in 2018 alone the federal government and states have collected more than $3 billion in seized assets. Over the last roughly 20 years, that number jumps to about $68 billion. And that\u2019s likely an undercount, since not all states fully report their forfeiture data. When it comes to changes at the federal level, the courts have been going back and forth on the issue.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kIl8EN7Oeq8\"><strong>PBS NewsHour<\/strong><\/a><strong>: <\/strong>A unanimous decision today from the U.S. Supreme Court limits the ability of states to seize private property and impose excessive fines.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>That was back in 2019, in a decision authored by former Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But as the court\u2019s ideological leanings have swung, so has its treatment of the issue. Here\u2019s another case decided in May of 2024. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox10tv.com\/video\/2024\/05\/11\/us-supreme-court-sides-with-alabama-satsuma-forfeiture-case\/\"><strong>Fox News 10<\/strong><\/a><strong>: <\/strong>The 6-3 ruling held that states aren\u2019t required to hold a preliminary hearing shortly after police seize property or money. The case involved a Georgia woman who challenged the seizure of her vehicle by police \u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radley Balko: <\/strong>Reform efforts have also stalled in Congress. <\/p>\n<p>It would take seven years, but in April 2000, Los Angeles County finally settled with Donald Scott\u2019s estate, paying out $4 million. The federal government also settled with the Scott estate for $1 million.<\/p>\n<p>For most of this time, Frances Plante had been living in that tipi that she had put up at Trail\u2019s End. Because she inherited her husband\u2019s valuable land but not his wealth, she fell behind on property taxes.<\/p>\n<p>And in the end, after paying attorneys\u2019 fees and the shares to Scott\u2019s children, Plante\u2019s share of the $5 million settlement wasn\u2019t enough to save Trail\u2019s End. And after news of the settlement hit the press, the IRS came calling, claiming that Plante owed $1 million in inheritance taxes from when she obtained the ranch from Scott.<\/p>\n<p>So in August 2001, almost nine years after an LA County tactical team had killed Donald Scott, a federal SWAT team \u2014 complete with two helicopters \u2014 descended upon Trail\u2019s End Ranch to evict Frances Plante from the property. <\/p>\n<p>They then did precisely what Donald Scott always feared the government would do: They seized his land, sold it at auction, and kept the proceeds for themselves.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<aside class=\"promote-banner\">\n <a class=\"promote-banner__link\" href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/podcasts\/collateral-damage\/\"><br \/><span class=\"promote-banner__image\"><br \/><img width=\"300\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/CD_podcast-landing.jpg?fit=300%2C150\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/CD_podcast-landing.jpg?w=2000 2000w, https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/CD_podcast-landing.jpg?w=300 300w, https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/CD_podcast-landing.jpg?w=768 768w, https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/CD_podcast-landing.jpg?w=1024 1024w, https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/CD_podcast-landing.jpg?w=1536 1536w, https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/CD_podcast-landing.jpg?w=540 540w, https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/CD_podcast-landing.jpg?w=1000 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/> <\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"promote-banner__text\">\n<p class=\"promote-banner__eyebrow\">\n Collateral Damage Podcast <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><br \/><\/aside>\n<p>That\u2019s it for Collateral Damage. <\/p>\n<p>Collateral Damage is a production of The Intercept. <\/p>\n<p>It was written and reported by me, Radley Balko.<\/p>\n<p>Additional writing by Andrew Stelzer, who also served as producer and editor.<\/p>\n<p>Laura Flynn is our showrunner.<\/p>\n<p>Ben Muessig is our editor-in-chief.<\/p>\n<p>The executive producers are me and Sumi Aggarwal.<\/p>\n<p>We had editing support from Maryam Saleh. <\/p>\n<p>Truc Nguyen mixed our show.<\/p>\n<p>Legal review by Shawn Musgrave and David Bralow.<\/p>\n<p>Fact-checking by Kadal Jesuthasan.<\/p>\n<p>Art direction by Fei Liu.<\/p>\n<p>Illustrations by Tara Anand.<\/p>\n<p>Copy editing by Nara Shin.<\/p>\n<p>Social and video media by Chelsey B. Coombs.<\/p>\n<p>Special thanks to Peter Beck for research assistance and to Ali Gharib for editorial feedback on this episode.<\/p>\n<p>This series was made possible by a grant from the Vital Projects Fund. <\/p>\n<p>If you want to send us a message, email us at podcasts@theintercept.com.<\/p>\n<p>And to follow my work and reporting, check out my newsletter, The Watch, at <a href=\"https:\/\/radleybalko.substack.com\/\">radleybalko.substack.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for listening.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/12\/03\/collateral-damage-episode-eight-legalized-takings\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1992, Donald Scott, the eccentric owner of a large Malibu estate, was killed in his home by an ad hoc team of raiding cops. The Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s Department led the raid, but a panoply of state and federal police agencies participated too. Police claimed Scott was operating a large marijuana grow on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4233","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}