Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca11-15-11201/USCOURTS-ca11-15-11201-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Kalen Amanda Kennedy
Appellee
United States of America
Appellant

Document Text:

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________

No. 15-11201

Non-Argument Calendar

________________________

D.C. Docket No. 5:14-cr-00045-WTH-PRL-1

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff-Appellant,

 versus

KALEN AMANDA KENNEDY, 

 Defendant-Appellee.

_______________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Florida

________________________

(November 2, 2015)

Before MARCUS, WILLIAM PRYOR, and EDMONDSON, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: 

The government appeals the district court’s denial of its motion for a 

USCA11 Case: 15-11201 Date Filed: 11/02/2015 Page: 1 of 5
2

forfeiture money judgment against Kalen Kennedy. Kennedy has filed no crossappeal. Reversible error has been shown; we vacate the judgment and remand.

A one-count federal indictment charged Kennedy with stealing funds from 

the Social Security Administration (“SSA”), in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 641. The 

indictment also included a notice of forfeiture, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 

981(a)(1)(C) and 28 U.S.C. § 2461(c), in which the government sought to forfeit 

$78,648: the amount of loss sustained by the SSA as a result of Kennedy’s 

offense. Kennedy pleaded guilty without a plea agreement. 

The government filed a motion for entry of a forfeiture judgment against 

Kennedy in the amount of $78,648. At sentencing, the district court denied the 

government’s forfeiture motion in the light of the court’s order requiring Kennedy 

to pay $78,648 in restitution. 

On appeal, the government contends that the district court erred as a matter 

of law by denying its forfeiture motion. We review the district court’s legal 

conclusions about criminal forfeiture de novo. United States v. Browne, 505 F.3d 

1229, 1278 (11th Cir. 2007). 

We conclude -- and Kennedy concedes expressly -- that, as a matter of law, 

criminal forfeiture was mandatory in this case. Where a defendant is convicted of 

an offense giving rise to a congressionally-authorized civil forfeiture and when the 

government has included a notice of forfeiture in the indictment, “the court shall

USCA11 Case: 15-11201 Date Filed: 11/02/2015 Page: 2 of 5
3

order the forfeiture of the property as part of the sentence in the criminal case . . . 

.” 28 U.S.C. § 2461(c) (emphasis added). 

Kennedy’s offense was subject to civil forfeiture under 18 U.S.C. § 981, 

which authorizes the government to seek civil forfeiture of property that either 

constitutes or is derived from proceeds traceable to a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 641. 

See 18 U.S.C. §§ 981(a)(1)(C), 1956(c)(7)(D). As a result, and because Kennedy’s 

indictment included a notice of forfeiture, the sentencing court was required to 

order forfeiture as a part of Kennedy’s sentence. See 28 U.S.C. § 2461(c); United 

States v. Brummer, 598 F.3d 1248, 1250-51 (11th Cir. 2010) (when criminal 

forfeiture is authorized under section 2461(c), the district court has no discretion 

and must order forfeiture); cf. United States v. Padron, 527 F.3d 1156, 1162 (11th 

Cir. 2008) (applying 18 U.S.C. § 981, 1956(c)(7), and 28 U.S.C. § 2461(c) to 

affirm the entry of a forfeiture money judgment as part of defendant’s sentence for 

mail fraud). Forfeiture funds go to the Department of Justice.

The district court was also required by statute to order Kennedy to pay 

restitution for the full amount of loss suffered by the SSA as a result of Kennedy’s 

offense. See 18 U.S.C. § 3663A (when a defendant is convicted of an offense 

against property under Title 18, the sentencing court “shall order . . . that the 

defendant make restitution to the victim of the offense.”). Moreover, “because 

restitution and forfeiture serve distinct purposes,” the district court lacked authority 

USCA11 Case: 15-11201 Date Filed: 11/02/2015 Page: 3 of 5
4

to “offset the amount of restitution owed to a victim by the value of property 

forfeited to the government, or vice versa.” See United States v. Joseph, 743 F.3d 

1350, 1354 (11th Cir. 2014) (“While restitution seeks to make victims whole by 

reimbursing them for their losses, forfeiture is meant to punish the defendant by 

transferring his ill-gotten gains to the United States Department of Justice.”). 

Restitution goes to the Social Security Administration, an independent agency of 

the federal government.

On appeal, Kennedy acknowledges that the district court was statutorily 

required to order both restitution and forfeiture. But she contends that, as applied to 

her, imposing both forms of punishment would amount to double jeopardy. The 

Double Jeopardy Clause “protects only against the imposition of multiple criminal 

punishments for the same offense, and then only when such occurs in successive 

proceedings.” Hudson v. United States, 118 S.Ct. 488, 493 (1997) (citations and 

emphasis omitted). 

We are unconvinced that the Double Jeopardy Clause is implicated by this 

appeal. Kennedy’s case involves no successive proceedings. Instead, the district 

court was required by statute to impose simultaneously both a forfeiture and a 

restitution order as part of Kennedy’s sentence in a single criminal prosecution. 

And we have upheld the imposition of both restitution and forfeiture amounts on 

USCA11 Case: 15-11201 Date Filed: 11/02/2015 Page: 4 of 5
5

the basis that “restitution and forfeiture serve distinct purposes.” See Joseph, 743 

F.3d at 1354. 

Our position is also consistent with the other circuits that have addressed the 

double jeopardy issue, each of which have concluded that concurrent restitution 

and forfeiture orders raise no double jeopardy concerns. See, e.g., United States v. 

Kalish, 626 F.3d 165, 169 (2nd Cir. 2010) (the “simultaneous imposition [of 

restitution and forfeiture] offends no constitutional provision”); United States v. 

Taylor, 582 F.3d 558, 566 (5th Cir. 2009) (imposition of both restitution and 

forfeiture for the same crime results in no double recovery to the government when 

the victim agency is an entity distinct from the Department of Justice (“DOJ”)); 

United States v. Venturella, 585 F.3d 1013, 1019-20 (7th Cir. 2009) (rejecting 

defendant’s double jeopardy argument because restitution and forfeiture serve 

different goals and because the victim agencies were separate entities from the 

DOJ).

We vacate the judgment and remand to the district court with instructions to 

reimpose Kennedy’s sentence to include both a forfeiture money judgment and a 

restitution order, each in the amount of $78,648.

VACATED AND REMANDED.

USCA11 Case: 15-11201 Date Filed: 11/02/2015 Page: 5 of 5