US v. 5443 Suffield Terrace, Skokie, Ill., 607 F. 3d 504 – Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit 2010

Case Caption:

  US v. 5443 Suffield Terrace, Skokie, Ill., 607 F. 3d 504 - Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit 2010

Case URL:

https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=17867063577367825082&q=civil+forfeiture+of+assets+suspected+to+be+proceeds+of+crime+in+Canada&hl=en&as_sdt=2006&as_ylo=2010&as_yhi=2023

Summary Significance:

Summary judgment may only be defeated by pointing to admissible evidence in the summary judgment record that creates a genuine issue of material fact.

Applicable laws:

Trading with The Enemy Act, 50 App. U.S.C. Section 5(b)(1), 16.

Brief Facts:

This appeal arose from the District Court’s grant of summary judgement in favour of the government. The District Court denied Connors’s Motion to dismiss giving rise to the instant appeal. The United States Customs officials stopped Connors on April 7, 1996, as he attempted to smuggle 1150 Cuban cigars into the United States from Canada. The officials confiscated the cigars and Connors's passport. Undeterred, Connors continued to travel to Cuba over the next three years on numerous occasions to smuggle cigars into the United States and sell them. In March 1997, local police found Cuban cigars in Connors's home, located at 5443 Suffield Terrace in Skokie, Illinois. The following day, March 15, 1997, Skokie police turned over to U.S. Customs officials the cigars that they found at Connors's home. Connors's escapades continued through 1999, when in late October U.S. Customs officials seized 850 Cuban cigars from Connors's home. A jury convicted Connors of smuggling Cuban cigars into the United States, conspiring to smuggle cigars into the United States, making a false statement on a passport application, and violating the Trading with The Enemy Act, 50 App. U.S.C. Section 5(b)(1), 16. The government filed this civil forfeiture action on March 14, 2002, just one-day shy of five years after Skokie police turned over the cigars they seized from Connors's house. The government argued that the house was subject to forfeiture under two theories: first, that the house was paid for, at least in part, with proceeds from Connors's illegal cigar business; and second, that Connors used the house to facilitate his illegal cigar business, subjecting the house to forfeiture under 18 U.S.C. Section 981(a)(1)(C) and 19 U.S.C. Section 1595a(A), respectively. Connors filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the statute of limitations began to run on April 7, 1996, when the government first discovered he was smuggling cigars into the United States. The district court denied his motion, holding that when Skokie police turned over the seized cigars to federal officials on March 15, 1997, it restarted the clock on the statute of limitations. The district court granted the government's motion for summary judgment. The district court denied Connors's motion for reconsideration and ordered the house forfeited. This appeal followed.

Issues for Determination:

Whether the Applicant could forfeit his house since it was obtained from proceeds of crime, and it used to facilitate his illegal business.

Holding:

The district court granted summary judgement on the government's theory that the house was paid for at least partly with proceeds from Connors's cigar smuggling business. The district court found that Connors had deposited far more money into the bank account from which he made the mortgage payments than could be attributable to his legitimate sources of income. The district court also noted that Connors did not produce any evidence of additional legitimate sources of income. On appeal, Connors argued that he had multiple sources of additional legitimate income, and that the district court ignored the evidence he submitted earlier in the litigation. The Court found that Connors waived this argument by failing to raise it properly before the district court at summary judgment, and thus affirmed the district court's granting of summary judgment on the income deficiency theory. The Court was of the view that Connors’s attempts to raise the issue of additional legitimate income were inadequate, as he did not substantiate his claim. Having affirmed the district court's granting of summary judgment on the income deficiency theory, the court held that it was unnecessary to address the district court's granting of summary judgment on the government's facilitation claim. The Court affirmed the district court's denial of the motion to dismiss and grant of summary judgment, hence the property remained forfeited to the United States. It is noteworthy that the onus lies on the Applicant to substantiate the legitimacy of their income and assets.

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