Is anybody trying to find out what happened to the hundreds of millions of dollars from Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg's "Asset Forfeiture" account(s) --- that folks say were gone before he took office

Why hasn't DA Alvin Bragg gone after the well more than Six Hundred Millions of Dollars from the Manhattan DA's "Asset Forfeiture" account(s)  >>>  apparently gone since the first day that Bragg took over the Manhattan DA's Office from former Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance ??? 

There have been many questions raised lately about Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg's selective enforcement of the law  ---  and by the same token, his selective investigations of certain possible crimes, and not others.  >>>  Perhaps the biggest uninvestigated case since Bragg took over the Manhattan DA's Office involves a massive amount of funds no longer in the accounts of the Manhattan DA's Office itself 

The very woke-sounding Soros-backed Alvin Bragg won the 2021 election ro become Manhattan’s first Black-American DA. Bragg ran as a radical change reformer who promised to pull back on prosecuting certain offenses and to pursue alternatives to incarceration.  Also very significantly, he also pledged to create a so-called participatory budgeting system, which would be similar to one used by many City Council members  >>>  in it,  Bragg's constituents would have some say on how to steer some spending.  “I want to have a process that’s more open.....”  

Bragg told  a small leftish-oriented alternative media outlet, called "The City" late in 2021, that he would prefer to spend on programs that focus on “mental health” and re-entry services for people coming out of jail and prison.  However, Bragg will start with just $31 million of available "Asset Forfeiture" funds instead of almost three-quarters of a billion bucks amassed by Bragg's predecessor, according to some records —  and most of those available dollars had  already been dedicated to a City University of New York grant program called the Criminal Justice Investment Initiative   >>>  by the former Manhattan DA  (See " Vance Depletes Manhattan DA’s $715M Bank Haul, Leaving Bragg With Small Change" by Reuven Blau. 11/14/2021, The City/     [https://www.thecity.nyc/2021/11/14/22781589/vance-spends-manhattan-da-asset-forfeiture-fund-stiffing-bragg]). 

Bragg says he has no plans to divert any funds that Vance had allocated from his office's "Asset Forfeiture" accounts  ---  but that leaves close to another seven hundred million bucks that Vance and his lavish money spenders shot to hell on other stuff  --- in other words, pretty much unaccounted for.  Official records showed that Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance had spent nearly $715 million in money brought in from big money case settlements for so-called "criminal justice programs".....  And, as a direct result of that largesse by the Vance team  >>> Vance's successor, Alvin Bragg has been left with almost none of the vast fund amassed by Vance's tram from "Asset Forfeitures," as its rake from profitable prosecutions of the very big fish-big money defendants  ---  all the way down to contraband cash seized from the more normal-sized defendants..... 

Vance seemed to have lavish tastes and an expensive life style

Not very long before the Vance-Bragg transistion, Vance had come under criticism  for using Asset Forfeiture funds to travel across globe for a variety of seminars and conferences  —  expending nearly $250,000 on meals and trips ranging from Los Angeles to Paris.

Vance was not derterred by public dislosures of his lavish spending. And he continued the spending even after public exposure of his high-flying trips, expensing $20,327 for travel to Miami and Singapore as well as for various meals and cab rides in the year that began in June 2019, which the few records provided by his office had shown.

There is no real auditing of the NYC DAs' Asset Forfeiture accounts by the NYC Comptroller or anybody else.**  The NYC Comptroller only conducts occasional audits of certain operations, methods and expenditurs of NYC's five DA's offices; and the current NYC Comptroller Brad Lander especially wants nothing to do with auditing the Asset Forfeiture books of the Manhattan DA, aka the New York County DA (DANY), nor those of any other NYC DA's offices. (For example, in the year 2022, the NYC Comptroller only audited the inventory, control and handling of office and technical equipment in the Office of the Manhattan DA [DANY].)  

As reported in the article appearing in "The City" ---  in November of 2021, immediately before the Vance-Bragg transition, Danny Frost, a Vance spokesperson, defended the overall spending of the Asset Forfeiture funds during Vance's three terms in office.  As told by Vances's man Frost  ---  the DA's Office under Cyrus Vance led “... aggressive” probes into '11 of the world’s biggest banks, then directed that hundreds of millions of dollars in the forfeited proceeds of those banks' economic crimes'..." into a variety of community-grounded organizations and projects that purportedly "...supported young people, survivors of crimes, and New Yorkers re-entering underserved Manhattan neighborhoods...."  

Frost also said that Vance made  >>>  “sustained investments in our neighborhoods so that fewer people became involved in the justice system in the first place....”  However, Frost declined to address Vance's use of Asset Forfeiture funds for travel expenses during his three term tenure in the Manhattan DA's Office; or any detailed information about where most of about $700 million in "Asset Forfeiture" funds went in the rather short peiod before Bragg became the Manhattan DA. 

So far, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg doesn't seem to want to know any more about Vance's expenditure of almost all of the $715 million Manhattan DA's Office  "Asset Forfeiture" slush fund accounts than does NYC Comptroller Brad Lander.

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** According to a 2018 report by the New York City Independent Budget Office,  "....  The five District Attorneys have received a sizable amount of funds through asset forfeiture in recent years, dollars allocated to them outside the city’s normal budget process. Although there are certain requirements on how these funds are deposited and spent, the District Attorneys retain considerable discretion over how they use the funds....  Federal guidelines accounting for the use of these funds are more stringent than the state’s, but at least in terms of the Manhattan DA more asset forfeiture funds have recently been received through state asset seizures and deferred prosecution agreements than from federal forfeitures. As of June 30, 2017, the Manhattan DA had more than $500 million in state asset forfeiture funds and more than $220 million in federal funds—information provided at IBO’s request. The state does not require the reporting of forfeiture balances held at the end of the year nor reporting on how money from state forfeitures has been spent. Given that all funds received by the District Attorneys through asset forfeiture are essentially public dollars, more transparency and accountability is warranted...."  ( See "Nest Egg: City’s District Attorneys Holding Millions in Off-Budget Funds From Asset Forfeitures"  by Bernard O'Brien,  February 2018, NYC Independent Budget Office/ Fiscal Brief             [https://ibo.nyc.ny.us/iboreports/nest-egg-citys-district-attorneys-holding-millions-in-off-budget-funds-from-asset-forfeitures-2018.html]).