U.S. Mint Keeps $80 Million in Coins Sent to It for Evaluating
Some people trust the U.S. government to protect their interests rather than the government’s interests. This is a very risky position to take.
A family found ten 1933 gold coins in their father’s safety deposit box. The coins were produced after the May 1 deadline to turn in all gold.
The family did not pay inheritance taxes on the coins. This was a mistake. Then it sent the coins to the Mint for evaluation. This was a bigger mistake. They were worth $80 million, private estimates said, so the Mint kept them. It said the man had stolen them in 1933. It offered no proof of this theft.
The statute of limitations for theft is seven years. But that applies only to things stolen from private citizens by private citizens. It apparently does not apply to things worth $80 million that the Mint says were stolen from the Mint, as defined by the Mint.
The case has been in court over a year. A judge recently upheld the Mint’s position.
The family plans to appeal the decision.
The problem here should be obvious. The agency that is entrusted with protecting citizens from state tyranny cannot safely be trusted: the U.S. government. Citizens should expect the government to break its own laws whenever its interests are at stake, as defined by a bureaucrat employed by the government whose position is protected by Civil Service legislation.
The family trusted another government bureaucrat to uphold their interests against the government’s interests. That trust was misplaced.
The family has decided to trust another group of judges to overturn the first judge’s defense of the government’s interests. This gets expensive.
Continue reading on news.yahoo.com.
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Published on September 10, 2012. The original is here.
The family did not get the return of their coins. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case in 2017.