Many clients who walk through the doors of Botto, Gilbert, Schottland & Andrle find that after they’ve committed a crime, the police won’t return their vehicle. Here is how and why.
If you are caught driving or using a vehicle to commit any one of a series of crimes in the state of Illinois, your car can be seized, held, forfeited to the State of Illinois, and then sold at auction with the proceeds going to the Sheriff or the police department that seized the vehicle.
The list of crimes that one CANNOT do in a vehicle without risking seizure is long. It includes drinking and driving, gun or drug possession, juvenile pimping, assault, and much more. Check out the Seizure and Forfeiture Act for a full list of crimes if you are interested.
When you are arrested for a crime such as DUI, you are normally in your car (or near it) when the arrest occurs. You can expect that if there is not a sober driver present, or the police just want to take your car, that a tow truck will be called and your vehicle will be impounded. Many cities will charge you a fee to get the vehicle out of impound (Crystal Lake charges $500, the city of Chicago charges nearly $1000). However, sometimes the vehicle will be kept and the local Sheriff will “seize” your vehicle in order to keep it and sell it.
When that happens, you will receive a letter notifying you that the seizure is about to take place. This letter is mailed to the last known address of your registered vehicle with the Secretary of State, so if you move and don’t update that address with the Secretary of State, you won’t get the letter. But that’s not a defense to not knowing about the seizure! The State’s Attorney of the county you got arrested in will then send you a copy of a complaint to that same address (again, if it’s not updated, you may not get this). Most people will get these letters, or find out that they can’t get their car out of impound and that this is reason why.
The big question next is, how can you get your vehicle back? I will answer that in the next series of posts on this topic.
