Newsday

Officials: Sales of impounded cars grossed $903G this year

Nassau County Executive declares revamped DWI seizure program an unmitigated success. Sales of forfeited drunk driving vehicles grossed $903G in the first 10 months of this year, whereas the program previously only generated an average of $58,000 per year in the previous years of 1999, 2000 and 2001. The difference, the County Executive said, is a contract with attorney Andrew J. Campanelli, for him to run the program and handle the prosecution of DWI forfeiture cases. Although the DWI seizure program reduced drunk driving offenses in the County by one third, it had been operating so inefficiently, that forfeiture cases languished, and seized cars sat in storage, with storage costs rising as high as $1,000 per day. Under Campanelli’s control, storage costs were reduced by ninety (90%) percent.

In the first year within which the County of Nassau retained Campanelli to run its DWI seizure program, Campanelli increased the rate of disposition of the County’s forfeiture cases by one thousand five hundred (1,500%) percent, and he increased the revenues generated by the program by more than one thousand eight hundred (1,800 %) percent, with more than $1.1 million collected in cash, and an additional $350,000 worth of vehicles being forfeited to the County in 2002 alone.