Magistrate Judge Francis
http://nycourts.law.com/CourtDocumentViewer.asp?view=Document&docID=118615
SEARCH of a van—after drug enforcement agents arrested its driver and occupants for conspiring to buy cocaine in New York and transport it to Buffalo—revealed $164,330 in cash whose forfeiture the government sought under 21 USC §881(a)(6). In February 2003, claimant, the van’s driver, was sentenced to 121 months in prison for conspiring to distribute more than one, but not more than five, kilograms of cocaine. The magistrate judge recommended that the government be awarded summary judgment and that pro se claimant’s claim seeking the money’s return on grounds that the government conceded that it had given him inadequate notice of the forfeiture proceedings be struck. Because he never answered nor adequately identified his interest in the funds, clamant lacked statutory standing under Supplemental Rule G(8)(c)(i). He also lacked Article III standing as set out in United States v. Cambio Exacto S.A. In finding the government entitled to the funds, the magistrate judge determined that it had shown a nexus between the funds and illegal activity, and that claimant failed to show he had no intent to use the funds to pay for illegal drugs.
