Senator’s court record becomes issue in civil asset forfeiture debate

State Sen. Kyle Loveless, who has done battle with police and prosecutors over political issues, has also had some more practical problems with the law.

Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater, one of Loveless’ biggest opponents, did a background check on him recently before a planned drug interdiction tour.

He discovered that the Oklahoma City Republican had an outstanding arrest warrant arising from a speeding ticket, a suspended driver’s license, court judgments for failure to pay debts and garnishment of his Senate wages.

“This routine check resulted in the discovery of issues that make you ineligible to tour the COMIT (Central Oklahoma Metro Interdiction Team) facility or ride with our officers,” Prater wrote in an email to Loveless on Tuesday.

Loveless said he had a speeding ticket that went to warrant when a piece of mail didn’t get forwarded from his old house to his new one. He said the suspended license came as news to him, and that’s been taken care of, too.

The debts that didn’t get paid, leading to court judgments and

garnishment of wages, were business issues arising from misunderstandings over what was owed, he said.

Prater found two garnishment affidavits involving Loveless, one for $716 on April 22, 2015, and another for $1,759 on Jan. 15.

Loveless said none of these issues were brought up when he has ridden with police previously. Prater said such background checks are not unusual.

“Due to the security issues surrounding criminal interdiction units, it is not uncommon to complete a security/background check on anyone who will be present in our facility or riding with our officers,” he said in his email to Loveless.

Loveless said he reached out to Prater to see if they could find common ground on the highly contentious civil asset forfeiture issue and agreed to clear his schedule for the drug interdiction tour.

Loveless had a bill that failed to advance last legislative session that would limit the authority of police to seize assets from people before conviction.

Prater vehemently opposes that.

“The Oklahoma District Attorney’s Association has developed proposed statutory changes to the civil asset forfeiture provisions in our laws that address concerns voiced by those advocating ‘reform’ to the process,” he said in the email.

“Purposefully omitted from those proposals is any reference to a required criminal conviction. Unless you are willing to remove that mandate from your proposed legislation, there really is no need to discuss further.”

For his part, Loveless said reform is needed, and points to two cases this year. One involves seizure of $53,000 in cash from a man who later proved the money belonged to a Burmese Christian rock band. The other involves Wagoner County Sheriff Bob Colbert, who is accused of extorting a motorist and his passenger into disclaiming interest in $10,000 seized during a traffic stop.