I just got finished with a criminal Money Laundering trial two days ago. During the trial, the defendant had a witness testify that she was the actual owner of the money that we found in the Defendant's vehicle. We thereafter had the witness that admitted under oath that the money was her's arrested for Money Laundering. The civil forfeiture proceeding is actually almost complete. We are about to finish off the Summary Judgement motions against the three persons the money was actually found on. Now suddenly this witness wants to claim rightful ownership of the property that was seized almost two years ago and has been subject to a forfieture suit for well over a year.

My question is this, is there any time limit on how long a person has to claim that they are the rightful owner of money that is the subject of a forfeiture lawsuit? We have never recieved any answer to discovery in this case claiming that this witness is the actual rightful owner of the money and two days ago was the first time we heard her make a claim to the money. We are hoping to shut this witness out of the money before she even has a chance to get in, since she lied on the stand during the criminial trial in a desparate attempt to get the defendant off. Thanks for all your help!


Steve Lilley
Assistant D.A., Hopkins County

Steve,

I used to be the prosecutor on the AG's specialized Money Laundering prosecution unit. We may have some materials that address your concern. Try calling Joe Maida, currently one of the Money Laundering prosecutors, at 512-936-7945, and let him know I referred you.

The person in actual possession of money is the presumed owner thereof. Thus, although the State is required to make the owner a party to the suit under 59.04, unless and until the other claimant intervenes and rebuts the presumption, I think you can proceed to judgment and cut off any additional claims. To my knowledge there is no case law addressing this issue, but the argument makes sense to me. I might also argue that the delay in coming forward implies the money was gifted to either the possessor or even to the State, or at least that laches prohibits the current claim.

But Steve, I just read about the Mississippi shooting. Seems to me they have bigger issues to worry about. How much money was this, anyway!

Hey David,
Where did you read about the shooting in Mississippi? I was just in Paris Texas about 40 miles from here and I met the President of the Chamber of Commerce there by accident and he remembered my name from the paper also.

Anyway, the total was $270,109. The shooter, as you might have read, was my "star witness" who testified that the Defendant intended to to buy 20 kilos of cocaine while in Dallas before they met.

Imagine my shock when I learned on Thursday that my witness, who had expressed a lot of fear of the defendant, was the one who did the shooting!

Hey all,
Thanks for your imput. I have a little more information about this money seizure deal that might be helpful. We have a Notice of Appearance of Counsel for the woman who claimed the money on the stand written back in September.

The notice is the type of thing we get when an attorney is retained or appointed on a criminal case. The attorney obviously did not know how to announce his client's interest in the civil suit and the "notice" is not filed marked. Anyway, the woman did not file an Answer until a couple of days ago just after the criminal case concluded, which is about 8 months after her "notice" given back in September. Is there any time limit out there when you have evidence that a "claimant" has actual notice of the seizure suit but does not do anything about it for over eight months? Thanks for your help.


Steve Lilley

I do have a reported case out there--should be Corwin Johnson vs. State of Texas out of Beaumont Court of Appeals in 2001ish. In that case, the day of trial a mother filed a Petition in Intervention claiming that she furnished the cash to her son (which she had) to purchase the car. Car was titled to the son.

I convinced the judge that the intervention was untimely and put the mother on the stand to show that she knew about the case pending for the 8 months prior and failed to file sooner. Judge struck the intervention and I obtained a final judgment.

Steve,

Got these words of advice from our Asset Forfeiture attorney, another resource if you need it:

I suppose it would depend on a few things:

1. Whether there is a final judgment in the forfeiture
2. Whether a deadline has been imposed by the court by local rule for addition of parties
3. Whether this was done for some strategic reason (like to prevent the State from knowing her status before the criminal trial) which could argue against her late addition to the case

Ultimately, I think it will be up to the court to decide whether she can add herself to the mix at such a late date unless there is already a judgment, which makes it too late. If the wait was due to a strategy to keep the State in the dark, I think she may be prevented from intervening at this point since it could prejudice the State's case in a number of ways, including time constraints to do discovery.