Alleged Drug House Seized; Owners Remain Free

NORTH HOLLYWOOD —  In a show of sweeping powers, authorities Monday seized an apartment house that police say was the site of illegal drug dealing, even though the owners have not been charged with a crime.

Calling the move a “last resort,” police said the building was the site of numerous undercover drug purchases and 17 narcotics arrests since 1994.

The two men who own the building have not been charged with any crime, but Los Angeles City Atty. Jim Hahn said no charges are required to seize property under strict federal drug laws. “We only have to establish that the property was used to distribute narcotics, and the complicity of the owners,” he said.

That did not sit well with some criminal defense lawyers. Although they acknowledged that federal courts have supported similar property seizures in the past, they still argue these measures are unconstitutional.

A more scathing criticism came from Harvey Englander, a campaign consultant for city attorney candidate Ted Stein, who called Hahn’s news conference at the building Monday--on the eve of today’s election--a “media stunt.”

“The reality is, there is an election going on and Jim Hahn would rather play politics than go after these drug dealers,” Englander said. “Why did he wait until the day before election day? If Ted Stein is elected, he will not wait for a television camera or an election.”

Hahn said the owners of the apartment house at 5242 Auckland Ave.--Manuel Villareal, 45, and Alfonso Cardenas, 38--have criminal records for narcotics offenses that date to the mid-1980s. Although both men were said to have lived there, neither of the men was at the building during the news conference there, LAPD Lt. Stan Embry said.

According to police, the apartment house, which is in an ethnically diverse blue-collar neighborhood near the Burbank city line, has been a hot spot for drug trafficking since the owners acquired the property in December 1987. Los Angeles and Burbank police have served several search warrants at the property, which have turned up 8 ounces of cocaine, drug measuring and packaging paraphernalia and firearms, according to Hahn.

“There are kids all over this neighborhood,” said Lt. Embry, officer in charge of the FALCON Narcotics Abatement Unit and the Citywide Nuisance Abatement Program that coordinated the seizure under federal narcotics asset forfeiture laws.

“Any kid on this block is in danger,” he said.

Criminal defense attorneys said such forfeitures are legal, but in the same breath criticized the government for circumventing due process. “Generally we think it is unconstitutional for people to be deprived of their property for supposedly committing a criminal act, without being convicted of those crimes,” said Mary Broderick, executive director of California Attorneys for Criminal Justice.

“The government is trying to get at the case through the back door, sometimes because they don’t have enough evidence to get a conviction in a criminal court.”

The forfeiture was filed as a civil complaint and therefore will not be held to the same standard of proof as a criminal trial. Under U.S. narcotic asset forfeiture laws, the state can seize property without a trial or hearing, until the property owner files a claim for the property. When fighting for the property, indigent defendants are not entitled to a court-appointed attorney, as is the case in criminal trials.

A tenant, who did not want to be named for fear of retaliation, said she knew drugs were being sold out of the building but did not say anything to police.

“A lot of people know what is going on. But you’re scared,” said the woman. “The police say they want to help, but they’re not going to be here [at all times] to help you. Now I’m worried that I’ll have to leave when the government takes it over” and the building is sold, she said.

LAPD Narcotics Officers James Garrett and Servando Pena said they bought small quantities of heroin and marijuana at the house on four occasions--most recently four months ago. Garrett and Pena said the house, located only a few miles from upscale neighborhoods in Burbank, Toluca Lake and Sherman Oaks, attracted customers in Corvettes and Mercedes-Benzes as well as youths they characterized as “gang-banger types.”