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Welcome to Spodek Law Group. If the FBI just seized your vehicle, you’re facing a legal system that operates nothing like the criminal justice process you’ve seen on television. The case against your car isn’t a criminal case. It’s a civil case. And in civil asset forfeiture, your vehicle is the defendant – not you. The case will literally be titled something like “United States v. One 2019 Ford F-150.” Your car is presumed guilty until you prove it innocent.
Here’s the part that catches everyone off guard: you don’t have to be charged with a crime. You don’t have to be convicted of anything. The FBI can keep your car forever even if you’re completely innocent, even if no prosecutor ever files charges against you. That’s because civil forfeiture operates on different rules than criminal law. In criminal court, the government has to prove your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In civil forfeiture, YOU have to prove your car’s “innocence” by a preponderance of the evidence. The burden of proof flips entirely.
The most dangerous thing you can do right now is wait. There’s a 35-day deadline running from the moment you receive notice of seizure, and if you miss it, your car is gone – not because anyone proved anything, but because you missed a deadline you probably didn’t know existed. Most people who lose their vehicles to forfeiture lose them by default. They wait to see what happens. By the time they decide to fight, the window has closed.
Heres the thing that nobody explains properly. When the FBI takes your car, they dont file charges against you. They file charges against your vehicle. The legal fiction of civil forfeiture treats your property as if its capable of committing crimes. The government argues that your car “facilitated” criminal activity or was purchased with proceeds from criminal activity. And because its a civil case against the property itself – not a criminal case against you – none of the constitutional protections you’d expect actually apply.
In a criminal case, you have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney. You have the presumption of innocence. The government must prove your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt before they can take anything from you. None of that applies in civil forfeiture. Your car dosent have constitutional rights. And because your not technically a party to the case – your car is – your own rights are limited.
Think about how backwards this is. The government can seize your property, hold it indefinitly, and force you to prove that your property is “innocent.” If you cant afford a lawyer to fight the forfeiture, too bad. Theres no right to appointed counsel in most civil forfeiture cases. The public defender system dosent apply because this isnt a criminal prosecution.
You are fighting for your property in a system designed to take it from you, with fewer rights than a criminal defendant.
Attorney Todd Spodek has handled cases were clients had there vehicles seized and were never charged with any crime. The FBI kept the car anyway. The burden was on the client to prove the vehicle wasnt connected to criminal activity – a nearly impossible task when you dont know what crime the government beleives was committed.
After seizing your vehicle, the government has 60 days to send you written notice. That notice will also be published on forfeiture.gov. Once you recieve that notice, you have exactly 35 days to file a claim contesting the forfeiture. This deadline is not negotiable. It dosent matter if you were out of town. It dosent matter if you didnt understand the paperwork. It dosent matter if you were trying to find a lawyer.
Miss the 35-day deadline, and your car is forfeited automaticaly by default. No hearing. No trial. No opportunity to present evidence. The government wins because you didnt file the right paperwork in time. This happens constantly because most people dont realize the clock is running.
Heres the trap: you recieve this official-looking government notice, and your first instinct is to wait and see what happens. Maybe this is all a misunderstanding. Maybe they’ll return the car once they realize you didnt do anything wrong. So you wait. Days turn into weeks. And somewhere around day 30, you finally decide to do something – only to discover that the deadline is in five days and you cant find a lawyer who can take the case on such short notice.
The government knows this is how people react. The system is designed around it. If forfeiture required the government to prove the case in court, theyd have to spend time and money on litigation. But if forfeiture can happen by default when people miss deadlines, the government gets to keep property without ever having to justify the seizure. The 35-day window isnt a protection for you. Its a trap that most people fall into.
Lets talk about what makes civil forfeiture so differant from the criminal justice system. In criminal cases, the government has to charge you, arraign you, provide discovery, and prove your guilt at trial. If they cant meet that burden, you go free. Forfeiture works completly differantly.
According to Department of Justice statistics, 84% of all forfeitures conducted by DOJ agencies are civil forfeitures – not criminal. This means the vast majority of property seizures happen without any criminal conviction. In many cases, without any criminal charges at all. The Institute for Justice has documented this extensively – half of people who have assets seized are never convicted of any crime, yet they still lose there property.
Think about what that means. You can be completly innocent. The FBI can seize your car. You can never be charged with anything. And you still lose your vehicle – permanantly – unless you successfully fight the forfeiture in civil court. The criminal justice system never touches you, but the civil forfeiture system takes your property anyway.
This is why Spodek Law Group exists. We handle cases were people who did absolutly nothing wrong lose property because they didnt understand how civil forfeiture works. The system is designed to be confusing, and it works because most people assume the criminal law protections they know about will save them. They wont.
The statistics are devastating. In Colorado, only 1% of forfeitures are even challenged. People just give up. The median forfeiture is about $1,276 – often not worth the legal fees to fight. So the government keeps cars, cash, and property worth hundreds of thousands of dollars collectivly, and almost nobody fights back because the system makes fighting back so difficult.
In criminal law, youve probly heard the phrase “innocent until proven guilty.” The government bears the burden of proof. They have to prove your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and if they cant, you walk free. This is the foundation of American criminal justice.
Civil forfeiture inverts this completly. Under the “innocent owner defense” defined in 18 USC 983(d), YOU must prove that you are an innocent owner. The burden is on YOU, not the government. And its not even enough to say you didnt commit any crime. You have to prove either that you didnt know about the criminal activity that supposedly involved your vehicle, or that you took reasonable steps to prevent that use.
You must prove your innocence. The government dosent have to prove your guilt.
Consider how difficult this is in practice. The FBI seizes your car and says it was used in drug trafficking. You werent the one driving it that day – your brother borrowed it. Now you have to prove you didnt know your brother was going to use your car to transport drugs. How do you prove a negative? How do you prove what you didnt know?
In 29 states plus under federal law, property owners bear the burden of proving there own innocence to get seized property back. This isnt a criminal trial were the government has to make its case. This is civil court were you have to prove your property should be returned. And if you cant meet that burden, the government keeps your car.
The “innocent owner defense” sounds like a protection. Its actualy a burden. The very name implies that you have to defend yourself – and you do. You have to hire a lawyer, gather evidence, appear in court, and prove that your property is innocent. All while the government has your car sitting in an impound lot.
Some states have reformed there civil forfeiture laws. New Mexico eliminated civil forfeiture entirely. Nebraska requires a criminal conviction before property can be forfeited. North Carolina has some of the strongest protections in the country. If you live in one of these states, you might think your protected.
Your not.
Heres how the federal government bypasses state forfeiture reforms. Its called “equitable sharing.” Your local police seize your car under state law. But instead of going through the state forfeiture process – which might require a conviction or have other protections – they call the FBI or DEA and “adopt” the seizure into federal jurisdiction. Now your car is subject to federal forfeiture law, not state law. All your states protections dissapear.
Why would local police do this? Money. Under equitable sharing, up to 80% of the forfeiture proceeds go back to the local agency that made the seizure. From 2000 to 2019, the federal government paid out more then $8.8 billion through equitable sharing. Local police departments have a financial incentive to seize property and federalize the forfeiture.
This creates a perverse system. Even if your state legislature passes strong forfeiture reforms, federal law can bypass those reforms completly. The only protection that matters is federal protection – and federal forfeiture law is notoriously weak on property rights. The Institute for Justice gives federal forfeiture law a D+ grade.
Since 2000, the federal government has forfeited at least $68.8 billion in property through civil forfeiture. Thats not criminal forfeiture after convictions. Thats civil forfeiture, most of which happened without any criminal conviction. Your car, your cash, your property – added to the billions taken through a system that operates outside normal constitutional protections.
Your state reforms are meaningless if federal agencies can adopt the seizure. And they can. And they do. The “equitable sharing” loophole makes state-level reform almost pointless as long as federal agencies remain willing partners in circumventing local protections.
If the FBI seized your car and you want it back, you have to take action. Heres what the process actualy looks like.
First, you need to file a claim. This is the formal document contesting the forfeiture, and it must be filed within 35 days of receiving notice. You can file a claim yourself – you dont technicaly need a lawyer – but the process is complicated enough that going it alone is risky. A proceduraly defective claim might be rejected, and then your back to losing by default.
When you file a claim, the administrative forfeiture process stops. The seizing agency forwards your claim to the US Attorneys Office. At that point, the government has 90 days to file a civil forfeiture complaint in federal court or they must return your property. If they file the complaint, the case becomes a federal civil lawsuit were you and the government litigate over your car.
Heres the problem. Even after you file a claim, even after the government files a complaint, you might wait months or years for resolution. The Supreme Court ruled in Culley v. Marshall in 2024 that the Due Process Clause dosent require a preliminary hearing in civil forfeiture cases. You dont get a quick hearing to determine whether the seizure was valid. You have to wait for the full civil case to work its way through the federal court system.
Meanwhile, your car sits in an impound lot. Depreciating. Possibly being damaged. Definitely not available for you to use. Youve done nothing wrong, your waiting for your day in court, and your vehicle is locked away somewhere you cant access it.
People ask how long civil forfeiture takes. The honest answer is that it depends – and its almost always longer then you expect.
After seizure, the government has 60 days to send notice. You have 35 days to file a claim. The government has 90 days after your claim to file a complaint or return the property. So far were at roughly six months, assuming everyone moves at the maximum speed. They usually dont.
Once the civil case is filed, it proceeds like any other federal civil lawsuit. Theres discovery, were both sides exchange documents and take depositions. Theres motion practice, were both sides file legal briefs arguing about procedure and evidence. Theres possibly a trial, although most forfeiture cases settle before trial. This can take another year or two.
At Spodek Law Group, weve seen forfeiture cases take two to three years from seizure to resolution. During that entire time, your property is in government custody. If your car was your primary transportation, youve been without it for years. Even if you eventually win, youve suffered significant harm from being deprived of your property for so long.
Todd Spodek has represented clients who won there forfeiture cases after two years of litigation – only to get back a vehicle that had been sitting in an outdoor impound lot the entire time. Weather damage. Battery dead. Tires flat. Mice in the interior. The government dosent maintain your property while theyre holding it. They just store it. And by the time you get it back, it may be worth a fraction of what it was when they seized it.
The Culley decision made this worse. Before that case, some lower courts required prompt preliminary hearings so owners could challenge seizures quickly. The Supreme Court closed that door. Now theres no constitutional requirement for a quick hearing. You wait however long the federal court system takes. And your property waits with you, depreciating every day.
If your reading this because the FBI just seized your vehicle, heres what you need to do immediatly. Not next week. Not when you figure out whats happening. Right now.
First, gather all the paperwork. The agents should have given you documentation about the seizure – a receipt, an inventory, something with case numbers and contact information. Keep all of this. You’ll need it to file a claim and your lawyer will need it to understand the case.
Second, note the date you recieved notice of seizure. That date starts the 35-day clock. If you recieved a written notice, the date on that notice matters. Count forward 35 days and mark that deadline on your calendar in red. This is the most important date in your case.
Third, contact a federal forfeiture attorney immediatly. Not a general practice lawyer who handles divorces and personal injury. You need someone who specifically handles federal asset forfeiture cases and understands the procedural traps. The consultation should happen within days, not weeks.
Fourth, do not assume the government will figure out you’re innocent and return your car. That dosent happen. The only way you get your vehicle back is by actively fighting for it. Passive waiting is how people lose by default.
Fifth, start documenting everything about your ownership and use of the vehicle. Gather title documents, registration, insurance records, maintenance receipts. If the government claims your car was involved in criminal activity, youll need evidence showing your legitimate ownership and use. Bank statements showing how you purchased the vehicle. Records of who had access to it. Anything that supports your position as an innocent owner.
Sixth, do not talk to federal agents about the seizure without an attorney present. Remember – this is a civil case, not a criminal case. You dont have the same protections. Anything you say can be used in the forfeiture proceedings. Agents may try to get you to make statements that hurt your innocent owner defense. Politely decline to discuss the case until your represented.
The 35-day deadline is non-negotiable. Miss it and you lose everything with no recourse.
The forfeiture system counts on people not understanding there rights, not meeting deadlines, and not fighting back. Most people dont. Thats why the government keeps so much property – not because they proved the property was connected to crime, but because property owners gave up or missed the deadline.
At Spodek Law Group, we handle federal asset forfeiture cases nationwide. Call 212-300-5196 for a confidential consultation. The clock is already running.
Very diligent, organized associates; got my case dismissed. Hard working attorneys who can put up with your anxiousness. I was accused of robbing a gemstone dealer. Definitely A law group that lays out all possible options and best alternative routes. Recommended for sure.
- ROBIN, GUN CHARGES ROBIN
NJ CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEYS