Pryor Cashman obtained a major victory in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on August 10, 2015 when the Court vacated the U.S. District Court’s ruling that allowed federal prosecutors to maintain possession of cars, bank accounts and cash seized from Pryor Cashman’s client, William R. Cosme, finding that the government had no right to do so without a warrant.

Circuit Judges John M. Walker Jr., Jose A. Cabranes and Susan L. Carney found that the government had violated Cosme’s Fourth Amendment rights by holding onto the seized property.

“Although the substantive allegations in the indictment mention the assets in connection with the criminal conduct, at no point in this case has the government had to demonstrate that it had probable cause to restrain Cosme’s assets as required by the Fourth Amendment,” Circuit Judge John M. Walker Jr. wrote in the opinion for the Court. “Cosme is thus entitled to a proper judicial determination of whether probable cause existed at the time of the seizure to support the forfeitability of his property.”

Partner Jeffrey Alberts, head of Pryor Cashman’s White Collar Defense and Investigations Practice, represented Cosme before the Second Circuit. Alberts believes the ruling will significantly curb the government’s practice of seizing property for forfeiture without judicial scrutiny.

In an interview with Law360 after the decision was announced, Alberts said: “In today’s decision, the Second Circuit rejected the government’s practice of seizing money from bank accounts without obtaining a warrant. In this case, and many cases like it, federal prosecutors seized funds based only on their own determination that the funds were subject to forfeiture, without any judicial review of that determination. The Second Circuit correctly found that this practice violates the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizure of property."

To read the full decision in United States. v. William R. Cosme, case number 14-1625, in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, please click here.

To read the article which appeared in the August 10, 2015 edition of Law 360 entitled “2nd Circ. Says DOJ Can’t Hold Property without a Warrant,” please click here.

The case was also reported on by New York Law Journal (NYLJ article also ran in Broward Daily Business Review) and Law.com.* 

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