Highway Robbery: Wash. Post Editorial on Asset Seizure from Church

A January 2, 2012, editorial in the Washington Post describes the unwarranted and unlawful seizure of $28,500 cash by a Virginia state trooper from Victor Ramos Guzman, the secretary of Iglesia Pentecostal Nuevo Renacer, a Pentecostal church that has locations in Virginia, Maryland and New York. Mr. Guzman and his brother-in..

David Smith Victory Featured in Wall Street Journal

Partner David Smith was recently featured in a Wall Street Journal article which recounted his successful representation of an individual in which he forced the government to return all of the money it had seized, as well as pay for attorney's fees. Regarding asset forfeiture, Mr. Smith was quoted as saying, "We are paying a..

Forfeiture Victory in Major Federal Case

Former Pennsylvania State Senator Vincent J. Fumo was convicted of 137 counts of defrauding the state Senate, a South Philadelphia nonprofit organization and a maritime museum. The federal jury sitting in Philadelphia also found him guilty of obstruction of justice. He has been sentenced to less than five years in prison. Th..

Supreme Court Decides Forfeiture Case

The Supreme Court held that the important civil forfeiture case of Alvarez v. Smith was moot because all of the actual property disputes between the parties had been settled or otherwise resolved in Illinois state court. The Court vacated the Seventh Circuit’s judgment in favor of the plaintiffs. 130 S. Ct. 576, 175 L...

Tenth Circuit Rules on Meaning of "Proceeds" in 18 U.S.C. 981(a)(2)

In United States v. Nacchio, 573 F.3d 1062 (10th Cir. 2009), the court of appeals correctly construed the CAFRA’s definition of the key word "proceeds" in 18 U.S.C. §981(a)(2). This is the first circuit decision to interpret §981(a)(2)’s language. The issue arose in the long–running appeal of Jose..

Update on Tri-West Investment Club Case

The folks at Claims Administration informed us on August 17, 2011 that their second proposed distribution plan has been filed with the Department of Justice. They hope to have DoJ’s approval for distribution of the second round of checks within the next four weeks. If this estimate holds, we may have the checks in hand..

Update on United States v. John Wayne Zidar

We are happy to report that all checks for the second distribution were mailed out to our claimants during the last week of July 2011. This distribution marks the end of the Zidar victim recovery process, which has taken almost ten years to finalize. If you retained our services to assist you with your claim and you have not..