2019 was an important year for civil forfeiture law in New York. This year, the Legislature enacted changes to the statute that should substantially reduce major areas of abuse. These changes, the first significant revisions to the statute since 1990, limit pretrial restraint to tainted property, restrict the use of money judgments, eliminate “common scheme or plan” liability and make clear that defendants are not required to prove that funds needed to pay living expenses and legal fees are untainted. The revisions also seek to reduce forfeiture abuse by reworking the process for distributing forfeited property.

Elimination of Actions Seeking Money Judgments and Limitation of Pretrial Restraint to Tainted Property. As originally enacted in 1983, CPLR Article 13-A did not address the issue of whether untainted property could be attached or restrained before trial. In 1986, the New York Court of Appeals held, in Morgenthau v. Citisource, N.Y.2d 211, 222 (1986), that the claiming authority could restrain untainted property. The court reached this conclusion by combining the provisions relating to pretrial restraint with those relating to money judgments.