United States v. Nejad, No. 18-30082 (9th Cir. 2019)
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The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's entry of a personal money judgment against defendant in the amount that corresponds to the proceeds of the offenses for which defendant was convicted. In this case, defendant was convicted of fraudulently obtaining Social Security, Medicaid, and food-stamp benefits.
The panel held that its rationale for allowing district courts to impose personal money judgments remained undisturbed by the reasoning in Honeycutt v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 1626 (2017), which held that 21 U.S.C. 853 does not authorize courts to impose joint and several liability for forfeiture judgments. The panel explained that Honeycutt's holding did not address whether personal money judgments are permissible in the criminal forfeiture context. The panel held that such personal money judgments were necessary to avoid undermining Congress' objectives in enacting mandatory forfeiture sanctions, pointing in particular to the substitute property provision found in section 853(p). The panel noted that Honeycutt does require clarification that personal money judgments must be enforced within the constraints imposed by the applicable criminal forfeiture statutes.
Court Description: Criminal Law The panel affirmed the district court’s entry of a “personal money judgment” against Parthava Behest Nejad in an amount that corresponds to the proceeds of the offenses for which Nejad was convicted: fraudulently obtaining Social Security, Medicaid, and food-stamp benefits to which he was not entitled. Nejad argued that none of the criminal forfeiture statutes at issue authorizes entry of a “personal money judgment” against him, and that when Congress has authorized entry of a personal money judgment in the criminal forfeiture context, it has done so explicitly. Nejad argued that the series of decisions in which this court has held that personal money judgments are permissible should be overruled because they conflict with the Supreme Court’s subsequent decision in Honeycutt v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 1626 (2017). The panel wrote that it is not free as a three-judge panel to overrule those decisions because they are not clearly irreconcilable with the reasoning or holding of Honeycutt, which did not address whether personal money judgments are permissible in the criminal forfeiture context. The panel explained that Honeycutt does require clarification that personal money judgments must be enforced within the constraints imposed by the applicable criminal forfeiture statutes. When the substitute-property UNITED STATES V. NEJAD 3 provision in 21 U.S.C. § 853(p) applies, once the government identifies untainted property it believes may be used to satisfy a personal money judgment, the government must return to the district court and establish that the statute’s requirements have been met. If the court concludes that those requirements have been satisfied, the court may then amend the forfeiture order to include the newly identified substitute property, at which point the government may satisfy a personal money judgment from the defendant’s untainted assets.
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