Monday, December 24, 2001

sfgate.com

  San Francisco law enforcement agencies got an unexpected gift this holiday season, in the form of nearly $900,000 in forfeited funds from a 10-year-old drug case.

District Attorney spokesman Fred Gardner says his department will collect about $134,000 from the 1992 marijuana sales case that ended with guilty pleas for Solomon Mohammed and Paula Polite. He was later sentenced to four years in prison, while she served just under a year in jail.

Investigators discovered about $1.5 million in cash, jewelry, weapons and drugs at the defendants' Western Addition apartment, a sum the U.S. Internal Revenue Service has been reckoning with over the years since then. In the meantime, interest has been accruing steadily.

On Friday, Gardner said prosecutors would put their money into a general fund that primarily goes to working with witnesses.

Police will be getting an even bigger piece of the pie, with an influx of $761,000 in cash plus a 1978 Porsche and a 1991 Suburban station wagon.

Also in line to benefit are the state of California, which is to receive $99,000 for anti-drug and anti-gang programs, and the IRS itself, which reaped just over $1 million for payment of back taxes.