Matthew Elias participated as a getaway driver in a 2017 armed stash house robbery in Queens, New York. While his codefendants succeeded in robbing roughly $20,000 in cash, a firearm, and marijuana, trial evidence showed that Elias was arrested the night of the robbery and never received any share of the proceeds. Despite this, the district court sentenced him to forfeit $10,000, representing a pro-rata share of the loot, under 18 U.S.C. § 981(a)(1)(C) and related substitute asset provisions.
On appeal, Elias argued that the Supreme Court’s decision in Honeycutt v. United States, which limits criminal forfeiture under 21 U.S.C. § 853(a)(1) to property actually obtained by the defendant, should apply equally to § 981(a)(1)(C), especially since substitute assets forfeiture is permitted only by application of 21 U.S.C. § 853(p).
The Second Circuit agreed. It held that § 981(a)(1)(C)’s operative language—“property obtained directly or indirectly, as the result of the commission of the offense”—is functionally the same as § 853(a)(1) for Honeycutt purposes. The panel joined the Third, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits in holding that Honeycutt’s “personal acquisition” standard applies to forfeiture under § 981(a)(1)(C). This holding widened the circuit split with the Sixth and Eighth Circuits which have held the absence of the phrase “the person obtained” to be controlling.
Because the record showed Elias personally received nothing from the robbery, the $10,000 money judgment did not fit § 981(a)(1)(C)’s categories of forfeitable property, nor could it be sustained as a substitute-assets order under § 853(p). The court vacated the forfeiture order and reiterated that criminal forfeiture targets the defendant’s illicit gain, not victim loss, unlike restitution
The court resolved other aspects of Elias’s sentence and the codefendant’s appeal in a separate summary order.
Appeal from E.D.N.Y.
Opinion by Robinson, joined by Lynch and Nathan.