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 Tripp420
What?
 
Registered: 06/17/08
Posts: 614
Loc: Northern Nevada
Last seen: 3 months, 25 days
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 Drug dealer fights $47 million side effect [LA] 
#10143073 - 04/10/09 05:11 PM (4 years, 1 month ago) |
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Drug dealer fights $47 million side effect
HOUMA, La. -- A convicted drug dealer is challenging a state law that requires the purchase of "drug stamps" as a means of paying taxes on controlled substances after being told he owes the Louisiana Department of Revenue more than $47 million.
Todd Matherne, 28, says in a state district court lawsuit that he only learned about the tax when he tried to get a house loan after serving his time following a 2006 guilty plea. It was then that he was told the revenue department had a $47 million tax lien against him.
The 1990 law is one of about 20 drug stamp laws in the nation, according to the Web site of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Such laws effectively provide opportunities to charge drug dealers for evading taxes and are sometimes called "Al Capone" laws, after the Prohibition-era gangster who was finally tripped up on federal income tax evasion charges and sent to prison.
Matherne was one of three people arrested in Houma in 2005 in connection with a ring that state police said sold steroids and impotence drugs by mail. A state police news release at the time described an operation that sold counterfeit versions of at least seven brand-name drugs. Hundreds of bottles of liquid steroids were confiscated.
Matherne said in his lawsuit that he pleaded guilty to six drug charges and was sentenced to prison but not fined.
"At no time did anyone tell Todd Matherne that he owed forty-seven million dollars to the state of Louisiana when he entered into the plea agreement," the lawsuit, dated March 30, said.
Such a large assessment would effectively deny Matherne any "any semblance of a normal life," the lawsuit said. It amounts to "an excessive fine resulting in outlandish debt" and "qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment" forbidden by the Constitution.
According to the tax stamp law, each gram of marijuana is taxed at a rate of $3.50. Other drugs are assessed at $200 per gram if sold by weight or $400 per 10 dosage units. Anyone who fails to purchase the stamps can be made to pay twice the amount of tax owed.
Similar laws in other state courts have been challenged with varying degrees of success. Louisiana's law deals specifically with some of the issues raised in various court challenges. It includes, for instance, provisions designed to protect dealers from self-incrimination by purchasing the stamps.
Figures on how much Louisiana has collected under the drug stamp law were not available when the department was contacted Thursday by The Associated Press. State officials have declined comment on the lawsuit.
The Terrebonne Parish Sheriff's Office is also a defendant in the suit.
"This is a total frivolous suit," Bill Dodd, the Houma attorney who represents the sheriff's office told The (Houma) Courier newspaper.
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Tripp420
What?
Registered: 06/17/08
Posts: 614
Loc: Northern Nevada
Last seen: 3 months, 25 days
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Re: Drug dealer fights $47 million side effect [LA] [Re: Tripp420]
#10143082 - 04/10/09 05:12 PM (4 years, 1 month ago) |
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i am at a loss of words for this one....
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Coaster
Baʿal
Registered: 05/22/06
Posts: 33,501
Loc: Deep in the Valley
Last seen: 1 year, 7 months
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Re: Drug dealer fights $47 million side effect [LA] [Re: Tripp420]
#10143115 - 04/10/09 05:18 PM (4 years, 1 month ago) |
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why don't they just hang him
or charge him one billion dollars
might as well go all out right
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 Dutchie3k
Psychic Drifter
Registered: 12/16/08
Posts: 346
Loc: this hazy bubble, state o...
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Re: Drug dealer fights $47 million side effect [LA] [Re: Coaster]
#10143660 - 04/10/09 06:31 PM (4 years, 1 month ago) |
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So as much of a crock of shit as it is on its own, prison is supposed to make the criminal pay his debt for his crimes. Yet after being released, the state wants to make him destitute as all fuck still, even though all assets deemed proceeds of crime are SEIZED.
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"The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others - the living - are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later"
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Coaster
Baʿal
Registered: 05/22/06
Posts: 33,501
Loc: Deep in the Valley
Last seen: 1 year, 7 months
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Re: Drug dealer fights $47 million side effect [LA] [Re: Dutchie3k]
#10143712 - 04/10/09 06:41 PM (4 years, 1 month ago) |
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ya pretty much double jeopardy
2 punishments for 1 crime
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Clept
ExperaMENTAL
Registered: 02/09/02
Posts: 20
Loc: The dirtyest of the dirty
Last seen: 3 years, 1 month
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Re: Drug dealer fights $47 million side effect [LA] [Re: Coaster]
#10144984 - 04/10/09 10:42 PM (4 years, 1 month ago) |
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Ahh, gotta love my home state of Louisiana.
The tax stamp law has got to be one of the biggest crocks of shit brought about by the war on drugs.
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suburbanned
Stranger
Registered: 02/20/08
Posts: 2,810
Last seen: 2 years, 9 months
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Re: Drug dealer fights $47 million side effect [LA] [Re: Coaster]
#10144987 - 04/10/09 10:42 PM (4 years, 1 month ago) |
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i thought those kind of laws were federally illegal? does federal law not supersede state law here like in every other case about drugs?
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Alan Rockefeller
Mycologist
Registered: 03/10/07
Posts: 31,161
Last seen: 8 hours, 50 minutes
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Re: Drug dealer fights $47 million side effect [LA] [Re: suburbanned]
#10145139 - 04/10/09 11:04 PM (4 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
i thought those kind of laws were federally illegal?
Why did you think that?
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero
Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,394
Loc: Caribbean
Last seen: 3 months, 3 days
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Re: Drug dealer fights $47 million side effect [LA] [Re: Coaster]
#10146331 - 04/11/09 04:15 AM (4 years, 1 month ago) |
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> ya pretty much double jeopardy 2 punishments for 1 crime
Two crimes were committed: 1) selling illegal drugs and 2) failure to pay taxes on the sale of illegal drugs
The real problem is that by taxing something illegal, the state is providing indirect approval of the illegal act.
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Just another spore in the wind.
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Tripp420
What?
Registered: 06/17/08
Posts: 614
Loc: Northern Nevada
Last seen: 3 months, 25 days
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Re: Drug dealer fights $47 million side effect [LA] [Re: suburbanned]
#10146453 - 04/11/09 05:58 AM (4 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
suburbantoker said:
i thought those kind of laws were federally illegal? does federal law not supersede state law here like in every other case about drugs?
as the who once said....
go ask timothy leary.......
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ArthurSalenez
Golden Block Of Bud
Registered: 10/23/08
Posts: 551
Last seen: 3 years, 3 months
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Re: Drug dealer fights $47 million side effect [LA] [Re: Tripp420]
#10149720 - 04/12/09 12:12 AM (4 years, 1 month ago) |
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Only one solution, flee to mexico.
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derx
who run it
Registered: 05/30/03
Posts: 2,459
Loc: dx/dt
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Re: Drug dealer fights $47 million side effect [LA] [Re: Seuss]
#10149881 - 04/12/09 01:03 AM (4 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Seuss said:
> ya pretty much double jeopardy 2 punishments for 1 crime
Two crimes were committed: 1) selling illegal drugs and 2) failure to pay taxes on the sale of illegal drugs
The real problem is that by taxing something illegal, the state is providing indirect approval of the illegal act.
It doesn't even matter if the illegal drugs are sold. The stamps are required for simple possession of the illegal substance.
This is double jeopardy.
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GetTheFuckOut
Long Gone.
Registered: 10/11/01
Posts: 60,898
Loc: 
Last seen: 2 years, 6 months
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Re: Drug dealer fights $47 million side effect [LA] [Re: Tripp420]
#10152201 - 04/12/09 03:44 PM (4 years, 1 month ago) |
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heh i know a few mathernes from over thata way
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I have logged in this once so that I can set the "last seen" feature up. let the faggots flow forth into OTD and have it. Its funny how they all grew nuts after I left. I'm not here, I'm not reading, but I urge you all to keep melting down over me. I know, I hurt alot of people, and they deserved it. epic win for me, epic fail for you.
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