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Tuesday, November 28th, 2017

Recent Criminal Forfeiture GVRs

The Supreme Court has recently reversed two drug forfeiture decisions in light of its decision in Honeycutt v. United States. Sentencing Resource Counsel Ada (“Sissy”) Phleger has the details:

“In the last two weeks the Supreme Court has granted, vacated, and remanded (GVR’ed) two cases in light of last summer’s Honeycutt v. United States, 581 U.S. ___ (2017), dealing with joint-and-several liability for forfeiture in drug conspiracies. Chittenden v. United States (No. 17-5100) and Brown v. United States (No. 16-9747).

“The Court in Honeycutt considered the language of 21 U.S.C. § 853(a)(1), mandating forfeiture of “any property constituting, or derived from, any proceeds the person obtained, directly or indirectly, as the result of” certain drug crimes. At the Government’s urging, the Sixth Circuit had interpreted this language to hold the defendant jointly-and-severally liable for all proceeds of the conspiracy, even though the Government conceded that the defendant himself …

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Sunday, February 27th, 2011

Restoration Comedy

United States v. Pescatore, No. 10-0520-cr (2d Cir. February 23, 2011) (Kearse, Winter, Hall, CJJ)

In connection with a plea agreement that covered both a long-running chop-shop operation and an extortion scheme, Michael Pescatore agreed to accept a 132 month sentence, a $2.5 million forfeiture and “no less than $3 million” in restitution. The agreement specified that the prosecutors would recommend that the forfeited assets be transferred to the victims, a process known as “restoration,” but that the ultimate decision lay with the Department of Justice, which would “make its decision in accordance with applicable law.”

At Pescatore’s 2008 sentencing, the court imposed the agreed-upon sentence, including $3 million in restitution, to be paid in full by the end of 2009. The written Judgment reflected this order, but did not contain the names of the victims to whom Pescatore owed restitution or the amounts to which they were entitled. In …

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Thursday, January 31st, 2008

Forfeit To Be Tied

United States v. Schlesinger, No. 05-03021-cr (2d Cir. January 30, 2008) (Jacobs, Parker, Wesley, CJJ) (per curiam)

Schlesinger, convicted of mail and wire fraud, made a clever, but unfortunately not clever enough, argument challenging the forfeiture of the proceeds.

The district court had relied on 28 U.S.C. § 2461(c) (2005), which provides that a criminal forfeiture can be alleged in the indictment when “no specific statutory provision is made for criminal forfeiture upon conviction.” Schlesinger pointed out that there is a specific statutory provision for forfeiture of mail and wire fraud offenses, thus § 2461(c) should not apply, but also that the specific provision, 18 U.S.C. § 982(a)(2)(A), applies only to the proceeds of frauds affecting a financial institution, which was not the case here. As the circuit summarized it, although it is not an image one would care to dwell on, Schlesinger argued that the government “falls between two …

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Saturday, October 6th, 2007

IF THE CRIME DOESN’T FIT THEY CAN’T FORFEIT

United States v. Capoccia, No. 06-0669-cr (2d Cir. September 19, 2007) (Sotomayer, Katzmann, CJJ, Gertner, DJ)

In this case, the district court erred in ordering forfeiture of the proceeds of conduct that occurred prior to the date of the conduct with which the defendant was charged. The decision turned on a very narrow reading of the indictment, as well as on the nature of the statute under which the defendant was charged.

At issue was money that Capoccia, a lawyer, misappropriated from a credit counseling/debt reduction service that he founded. Capoccia was convicted of misappropriating unearned client retainer fees, failing to give complete refunds to clients who withdrew from the program, and embezzling client escrow funds that was supposed to be paid to credit card companies to settle clients’ debts.

Capoccia was charged with interstate transportation of stolen money under 18 U.S.C. § 2314. While the indictment referenced a “scheme” …

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