Miles Guo Court Documents · Doc 694

摘要

Government Status Letter · Why the § 853(n) Petitions Were Not on the Public Docket

A two-page status letter submitted by the United States Attorney's Office on April 21, 2025 as directed by the Court. These two pages answer the question most often asked about the third-party property claims in this case: why the petitions filed by thousands of investors were not appearing on the public docket.

The Court's direction

The letter recites that the Court gave its direction by email dated April 15, 2025. The Court noted that the Government's forfeiture notice of February 6, 2025 directed claimants to send claims to the Clerk of Court, and that claims sent to the Clerk had in turn been sent to the Government rather than filed on the docket. The Court therefore directed the Government to "confirm[] that it is in possession of these filings and indicat[e] how it plans to return any and all § 853(n) claims to the Court for filing on the public docket."

The figures the Government reported

As of the date of the letter, the Government had received from the Clerk's Office and was in possession of:

• approximately 88 petitions that properly cite Section 853(n) as a basis to contest the Government's forfeiture;
• approximately 215 claims outlining an interest in the forfeited property and objecting to forfeiture. Although these do not cite the section, the Government construes them as § 853(n)(6) petitions contesting forfeiture by asserting an interest in the various assets contained in the consent preliminary order of forfeiture.

In addition, the U.S. Attorney's Office had received directly over 500 petitions for remission or mitigation, with the letter noting that more arrive daily. Because the authority to direct remission or mitigation of forfeited funds rests entirely with the Attorney General (21 U.S.C. § 853(i)), those petitions fall outside the parameters of the Court's order and of Section 853(n) and need not be sent to the Court.

The Government stated that it was reviewing these over-800 submissions, in part to ensure that any Section 853(n) petitions are sent to the Court for filing on the docket, and that its forfeiture staff were in contact with the Clerk's Office to arrange their return. The letter also notes that several of the filings request to be filed under seal.

Why it matters

These figures and this mechanism are the factual basis for the later claim that thousands of petitions were never docketed. On the account given here the problem was not that no one was handling them, but that the forfeiture notice itself routed the claims onto a path that did not reach the public docket: sent to the Clerk, forwarded to the Government, and held there until the Court asked in April.

Signed for Acting United States Attorney Matthew Podolsky, with Assistant United States Attorneys Micah F. Fergenson, Ryan B. Finkel, Justin Horton, and Juliana N. Murray named.