Asset forfeiture annual reports (Suffolk County District Attorney's Office)
| Submitted | Jan. 27, 2017 |
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Communications
From: Andrew Quemere
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the Massachusetts Public Records Law, M.G.L. c.66, §10, I hereby request the following records:
* All annual reports on civil asset forfeiture accounts from 2000 to the present
* All policies, procedures, and training records related to civil asset forfeiture
I also request that, if appropriate, fees be waived as we believe this request is in the public interest, as suggested but not stipulated by the recommendations of the Massachusetts Supervisor of Public Records. The requested documents will be made available to the general public free of charge as part of the public information service at MuckRock.com, processed by a representative of the news media/press and is made in the process of news gathering and not for commercial usage.
I expect the request to be filled in an accessible format, including for screen readers, which provide text-to-speech for persons unable to read print. Files that are not accessible to screen readers include, for example, .pdf image files as well as physical documents.
In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.
Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 10 calendar days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Andrew Quemere
From: Wark, Jake (SUF)
Thank you for your inquiry. In the future, please refer public records requests to the SCDAO Records Access Officer at SCDAOPRR@state.ma.us<mailto:SCDAOPRR@state.ma.us>.
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~WRD000
From: Arno, Claudia (DAA)
Dear Mr. Quemere,
I received your request, and I am looking into assembling the materials you reference. I will be in touch with you early next week with an estimate of how long it will take us to produce the responsive materials in the format you are asking for.
Sincerely,
Claudia Arno
Records Access Officer
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image001
From: Arno, Claudia (DAA)
Dear Mr. Quemere,
My apologies for not getting back to you earlier this week; I will be sending you the documents you requested on Monday, February 6. There will be no fees associated with this production.
Sincerely,
Claudia Arno
Claudia Arno
Assistant District Attorney/Records Access Officer
Suffolk County District Attorney's Office
One Bulfinch Place
Boston, MA 02114
(617) 619-4131
From: Arno, Claudia (SUF)
Dear Mr. Quemere,
Please find attached the documents responsive to your public records request of January 27, 2017 (PRR # 170127B). You requested "all annual reports on civil asset forfeiture accounts from 2000 to the present," as well as "all policies, procedures, and training records related to civil asset forfeiture." The annual reports attached are for fiscal years 2009 to 2015, because this office only maintains such records for the most recent seven years.
To clarify a potential source of confusion: the table of contents in the training manual pdf does not match the rest of the document. This is because the table of contents was never updated to correspond with the materials provided at the 2016 trainings; I have included it in the interest of completeness, because it is the most recent table of contents that we have. The following redactions have been made to the training manual document:
· Personal identifying information such as names and addresses (G.L. c. 4, § 26(c))
· Home telephone numbers of unelected employees of an agency (G.L. c. 4, § 26(o))
Because your request took fewer than four hours of review and redaction time to complete, and because we are emailing you this information rather than providing it on a storage device, there are no fees associated with this production (G.L. c. 66, § 10(d)).
Finally, in rereading your request I noticed that you do not provide any dates for your request for "all policies, procedures, and training records related to civil asset forfeiture." All the current policies and materials for trainings on asset forfeiture are attached. To the extent that you intended your request to encompass materials related to trainings prior to 2016 or examples of every type of letter or motion our office has used relative to asset forfeiture proceedings over the years, that would be a much more time-consuming and potentially costly production. Therefore, I would ask that you please let me know if that is your understanding of your request.
Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions regarding this production. I can be reached by phone at (617) 619-4131, or by email at claudia.arno@state.ma.us.
Sincerely,
Claudia Arno
Claudia Arno
Assistant District Attorney/Records Access Officer
Suffolk County District Attorney's Office
One Bulfinch Place
Boston, MA 02114
(617) 619-4131
