Nation : Confiscated Money to Build Prisons

SAN ANTONIO — Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh today said $229 million seized from drug traffickers and organized crime groups will be used to build more than 3,000 new federal prison cells.

The money, ordered transferred from the Justice Department’s Asset Forfeiture Fund to the federal Bureau of Prisons, is a down payment on President Bush’s proposed $1.5 billion in prison construction, Thornburgh told an annual gathering of federal prosecutors.

“This is one of the nicer ironies of our times,” Thornburgh said. “We’re now taking that money and turning it against those criminals from whom it was so justly taken. Talk about poetic justice--this is that.”