Auditor Seal

YELLOW SHEET

Office of the State Auditor of Missouri
Claire McCaskill

 

February 28, 2002

Report No. 2002-18

As required by state law we compiled the 2001 Criminal Activity Forfeiture Act (CAFA) seizure reports submitted to the State Auditor's Office by prosecuting attorneys and the Attorney General.This compilation was limited to the presentation of information submitted. 

The State Auditor received 83 of the 116 (72%) CAFA seizure reports, required to be submitted by January 31, 2002, from prosecuting attorneys and the Attorney General for property seized in calendar year 2001.This compliance percentage is a significant increase from the prior year when only 30 of the 116 (26%) required CAFA seizure reports were submitted timely to the Department of Public Safety for property seized in calendar year 2000. 

However, after receiving information from jurisdictions across the state there is reason for some concern.Even though more jurisdictions actually filed reports with the State Auditor's Office this year, many failed to report how the forfeitures they were responsible for were disposed of; resulting in less confidence as to their proper disposition. 

As a result, a comparison of this year's report filings to last year shows the number of forfeitures decreased overall.While it appears a slight increase of the amount of forfeitures remitted to the state occurred, it is difficult to conclude due to requested information being withheld. 

To accomplish our objective we compiled all seizure information submitted to the Director of the Missouri Department of Public Safety for calendar year 2000 so a comparison would be available. 

We also mailed a letter to prosecuting attorneys and to the Attorney General, dated December 28, 2001, notifying them of the deadline for the submission of the CAFA seizure and forfeiture reports.This letter listed the information that should be included in their report according to Section 513.607.8, RSMo. Supp. 2001, and that the report should be submitted to both the State Auditor and to the Director of the Missouri Department of Public Safety.The letter also indicated that if a prosecutor did not have any seizures a report indicating no seizures needed to be submitted. 

Due to the February 28, 2002 statutory deadline to submit this report, only seizure reports received by February 15, 2002 are included in the compilation.

Complete Audit Report


Missouri State Auditor's Office
moaudit@auditor.mo.gov