They seized it. We fight to get it back.
Cash, cars, accounts, homes - taken by the government, sometimes without any charge at all. Forfeiture has deadlines that arrive fast; the defense has to start faster.
Netflix told the story. The defense was ours.
When Shonda Rhimes built Inventing Anna, the defense at its center was Todd Spodek’s - argued for the so-called fake heiress in a Manhattan courtroom long before Arian Moayed of Succession played him on screen. What 320 million hours of viewers watched is the method every client of this firm gets, in every federal district.
The record, dated and sourced.
How your case unfolds.
THE FULL PROCESS →Risk-free, in person or by phone. Ask anything, for as long as it takes. Strategy starts the same day.
Seizure notices, claim deadlines, release petitions - we force the government into court before the property quietly defaults away.
Attack the tracing, brief the innocent owner, cap the take under the Eighth Amendment - and if trial serves you, we put the government to its proof.
Civil asset forfeiture lets the government take property on suspicion alone - and the burden of getting it back falls on you. Criminal forfeiture rides alongside an indictment and reaches everything the government calls proceeds. Both run on strict deadlines: miss a claim window and the property is gone by default. We contest seizures, file the claims, and force the government to prove its case.
Seizure first, questions later.
Forfeiture is the rare corner of federal law where the government takes first and litigates second. CAFRA deadlines start running the day of the seizure - miss one and the property is gone without a judge ever weighing in. We calendar every deadline the day we take the file, demand the government prove its case, and force the fight into a courtroom.
What is actually at stake.
In civil forfeiture the “defendant” is the property, and the burden games favor the government. In criminal forfeiture, the money judgment follows the conviction and can swallow untainted assets. We litigate tracing, put the innocent-owner defense on the record, and negotiate substitute-asset exposure down to what the statute actually allows.
Where these cases break.
Standing is the government’s first hope: they want an owner who never appears. Appear, and their proof problems begin - tracing gaps, stale probable cause, seizures that outran the warrant. Suppression reaches forfeiture too: an illegal stop poisons the property, and the Eighth Amendment caps what excess zeal can take.
What the government can take - and what it cannot.
21 U.S.C. §881 reaches property “used to facilitate” drug crime; 18 U.S.C. §981 and §982 reach fraud proceeds; and CAFRA sets the procedure for all of it. Civil claims run on deadlines measured in days - 35 to contest a seizure notice, then the government has 90 to file or give the property back. Criminal forfeiture needs a conviction; civil forfeiture does not, which is why agencies prefer it. And the Supreme Court’s Timbs decision made the Excessive Fines Clause a real ceiling: a $42,000 Land Rover cannot answer for a $1,200 offense.
If your property was just seized.
Photograph the paperwork, calendar every date on it, and file the verified claim - not the “petition for remission” the notice nudges you toward, which asks the seizing agency to grade its own homework. A claim forces the case into federal court, where discovery runs both ways and prosecutors must prove the property’s connection to a crime. Do not discuss the underlying investigation with anyone while the clock runs; a forfeiture interview is an interview.
Todd A. Spodek is a second-generation trial lawyer whose defense of Anna Delvey became Netflix's Inventing Anna. He appears on Fox News and CNN as a legal analyst, authored "My Advice to Diddy" in The Spectator, and is quoted by the Associated Press when the biggest federal cases break. The record behind the profile: a complete acquittal in a $26M money-laundering trial, RICO charges carrying a 10-year minimum dismissed, and 6 months on a $12M Ponzi case.
See who fights for you before you ever call.
Who we are, how we work, and why clients nationwide trust us with their future - in under a minute.
Why this firm.
Five decades of federal courtrooms. Whatever the government has charged, this firm has defended it before.
No allegiance to U.S. Attorneys, agents, or agencies. The client is the only constituency.
Every district in the country, one client portal - documents, invoices, counsel, in real time.
We decline more federal matters than we accept - and every accepted case gets the whole bench.
Know who is on the other side.
The first 72 hours decide the next 72 weeks.
No interviews, no consents, no explaining, no deleting. The words said in hour zero are the exhibits at trial. Write down what was asked and by whom - then stop.
Privilege attaches, facts get mapped while memory is fresh, documents get preserved the right way, and nobody in your orbit talks to agents unrepresented again.
We contact the government as your counsel: target, subject, or witness gets confirmed, deadlines get calendared, and the defense - not the investigation - sets the tempo.
On the record, on the wire.
Get ahead of the case.
Answered within 24 hours, guaranteed. Some stories are better told out loud -
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