United States v. White, No. 11-1989 (8th Cir. 2012)
Annotate this CasePetitioner appealed the district court's dismissal of her petition seeking half the proceeds of the sale of stock that was ordered forfeited in her ex-husband's conviction for mail fraud and money laundering in connection with the Thomas Petters Ponzi scheme. The court concluded that petitioner did not allege a legal interest in the stock proceeds sufficient to confer standing, and that, even if she did, her petition failed on the merits. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.
Court Description: Criminal case - Forfeiture. White could not use an ancillary proceeding under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 853(n) to relitigate the nexus between the criminal acts of her ex-husband and the forfeited proceeds from the sale of stock; since White claimed both a contractual and a marital interest in the stock, the court would look to Minnesota state law to determine whether she had a valid legal interest in the shares; terms of an alleged oral contract between White and her husband were too vague and indefinite to create an enforceable contractual interest in the proceeds; even if there were an oral contract, it created an interest in a sum of money equal to one-half of increased value of the shares and not in the shares themselves; any breach of the oral contract by her husband did not confer upon White a legal interest in the sale proceeds, and, as a result, White did not have standing to contest the forfeiture based on a contractual interest in the stock proceeds; under Minnesota law, White did not have a marital interest in the proceeds because she was not reasonably without cause to believe the property was subject to forfeiture at the time she filed for divorce.
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