$320,000 to Fight Drugs and Crime

By Criss Candelaria, Apache County Attorney

At the County Attorney's request, the courts ordered $320,000 from assets seized from criminals to our law enforcement funds in 2007.

This money enables us to pay officer overtime and to obtain better law enforcement tools. For example, we used:

$49,979 for an ACCENT canine unit, including:

$36,891: 2007 Tahoe;
$8,459.30 car light bar;
$2,735.00 car radio; and
$1,894.60 canine insert.

$27,508 for mobile scales for Sanders Port of Entry;
$5,416 for video capability in interview rooms used by ACCENT; and
$2,850 for Navajo Nation Canine Officers training.

Apache County Crime Enforcement Team (ACCENT) is a multi-agency task force that fights drugs and other serious crimes. The seized property is usually cars and cash, etc., from arrests for transporting dangerous drugs and marijuana. More about ACCENT in a later article.

ACCENT seizes the property that facilitates crime or is the proceeds of crime; and the County Attorney seeks a court order that the property be used for law enforcement purposes. Arizona forfeiture statutes authorize the process. We notify the suspects/owners of the property of our intent to have it given to us, and then provide them an opportunity to inform us or the court on why it should not be. Ultimately, the court decides on whether or not the property is returned to the owners/suspects, or given to the county to fight crime.

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