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Philadelphia DA's Office Dismisses Claims Against Plaintiffs Who Sued To Take Down City Program

By Cherri Gregg

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - The Philadelphia DA's office has dropped its claim against the home of two plaintiffs involved in a class action lawsuit that challenges the city's program of seizing millions in cash, cars and property every year.

Each year the city of Philadelphia seizes more than six-million dollars in cash, cars and property from individuals who may not be guilty of a crime, without a hearing and all the money going into law enforcement coffers.

"Finally the nightmare is over," says Markela Sourvelis, one of the plaintiffs in the case. She says her home was seized last May after her son was arrested for selling a small amount of drugs nearby.

She and her husband, Christos, have fought to keep the home and are lead plaintiffs in a lawsuit that claims the city's asset forfeiture process is unconstitutional.

"They didn't even have any evidence or any reason to take our home," says Sourvelis, who claims the first time she heard her home would be seized was when law enforcement showed up and asked her and her family to leave.

"We had to leave our home for a week," she says, "and then when we were back in the house I would cry and constantly thinking about whether they would take it from us. We have so many memories here."

The DA's office dropped the forfeiture action against both Sourvelis and Doila Welch, but they have no plans to leave the lawsuit.

"We don't to see this happen to anybody, innocent people ever again," says Sourvelis.

Plaintiff attorney Robert Frommer says the class action will continue:

"Our client's homes are safe now we're trying to make everyone else's homes safe as well."

In response to a request for comment, the DA's office issued the following statement Thursday afternoon:

"The class action lawyers are trying to portray today's events as some sort of victory. The truth is that we resolve most of our real estate forfeiture actions by agreement, just as we are doing here, and we have been doing that since long before this lawsuit was filed. We do it because the purpose of the forfeiture process is to protect public safety and relieve neighborhoods of rampant drug dealing.

In a small number of cases, the owner of the property is unwilling or unable to control it so that the drug activity stops. In those cases, we pursue forfeiture in order to do what the owner will not.

In most other cases, however, the owner is able to provide reasonable assurance that he will prevent further drug activity. In that event, the forfeiture petition is withdrawn by agreement.

That is all that happened in this case. The owners' son was arrested for selling heroin from the house. When police came to arrest him at the house, they recovered heroin there, as he was trying to flush it down the toilet.

The son was charged and is participating in a drug treatment program. The owners have signed an agreement certifying that they will take all reasonable measures to make sure that their neighborhood is no longer subjected to the offenses previously perpetrated. As the owners are well aware, if they fail in their promises, the proceedings may be renewed."

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