Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_10-cv-00513/USCOURTS-azd-2_10-cv-00513-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
C.G.
Plaintiff
Argimiro Gonzalez
Plaintiff
Alicia Jimenez
Plaintiff
United States of America
Defendant

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NOT FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

Alicia Jimenez and Argimiro Gonzales,

husband and wife; and C.G., a minor, 

Plaintiffs, 

vs.

United States of America, 

Defendant. 

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No. CV-10-513-PHX-GMS

ORDER

Pending before this Court are: (1) Plaintiffs Motion to Set Aside Forfeiture (Dkt. # 1),

(2) Defendant’s First Motion to Strike a Portion of Plaintiff’s Reply (Dkt. # 13), and (3)

Plaintiff’s Response to Defendant’s Motion to Strike a Portion of Plaintiff’s Reply and

Motion For Leave To Amend Plaintiff’s Reply (Dkt. # 14).

The parties submit affidavits and offers of proof, and apparently desire that the Court

decide this matter without an evidentiary hearing. The parties do not disagree on the facts

that are essential to the Court’s determination of this issue. In light of those facts, the Court

determines that the government did not take “reasonable steps” under all the circumstances

to provide Alicia Jimenez and Argimiro Gonzales with notice of the nonjudicial forfeiture

of the property seized from them. That property includes a total of $10,067 in United States

currency and the Chevrolet Tahoe (also referred to as a 1995 or 1996 Chevy Blazer or

Cadillac Escalade) in which Ms. Jimenez and her son were traveling. The Court further

Case 2:10-cv-00513-GMS Document 18 Filed 06/18/10 Page 1 of 8
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 The United States moves to strike two paragraphs in Plaintiffs’ Reply in which

Plaintiffs argue that Ms. Jimenez identified her husband to Agent Martinez not simply as

“Argimiro” but as “Argimiro Gonzalez”. The Court grants the United States’ motion in part.

While the Court will not strike the paragraphs in their totality, the Court will strike any

reference in those paragraphs to “Gonzalez” to the extent that Plaintiffs attempt to argue that

the records reflect that Ms. Jimenez identified the last name of her husband to Agent

Martinez or to anyone else at ICE on the date of her arrest. In light of this ruling Plaintiffs’

Motion For Leave To Amend Their Reply (Dkt. # 14) is denied as moot. 

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determines that, because they were not provided with such notice, Plaintiffs did not know or

have reason to know the facts necessary to allow them to file a timely claim challenging the

forfeiture. The Court, therefore, sets aside the forfeiture.

BACKGROUND

The cash and the car were seized from Ms. Jimenez on August 22, 2009, at the San

Luis border station, when she was arrested for violating 31 U.S.C. § 5332 (2009). There is

apparently no dispute that Ms. Jimenez provided the U.S. Immigration and Customs

Enforcement (“ICE”) with her actual residence address – 1373 San Francisco Street, San

Luis, Arizona. For purposes of filing a criminal complaint against Ms. Jimenez, Special

Agent Victor Martinez swore out a probable cause statement before the Court. As it pertains

to whether the United States took reasonable steps to provide notice of the forfeiture to Ms.

Jimenez and her husband, Argimiro Gonzalez, Agent Martinez avows in the probable cause

statement that he spoke with Ms. Jimenez after she had been interviewed by other ICE

officers on the day she was apprehended. In his conversation with Ms. Jimenez, she

identified the property as belonging to her husband Argimiro. It is not clear from the

probable cause statement whether Ms. Jimenez provided her husband’s last name, or whether

Agent Martinez simply assumed that Argimiro’s last name was Jimenez1

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On that same date, Ms. Jimenez was interviewed by pretrial services officer Elena

Hernandez for purposes of making a determination concerning her pretrial release after her

arrest. In that interview, as is allegedly confirmed by the Pretrial Services Report, Ms.

Jimenez informed the government that she and Argimiro Gonzalez owned a store located at

Case 2:10-cv-00513-GMS Document 18 Filed 06/18/10 Page 2 of 8
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552 Archibald Street in San Luis, Arizona. Ms. Jimenez further provided the same

residential address to pretrial services that she had previously provided to ICE. Plaintiffs

allege that the pretrial services report containing this information was at all times in the

possession of the Customs and Border Patrol. The United States denies that ICE had

reasonable access to this report.

On August 28, 2009, the United States decided not to pursue criminal charges against

Ms. Jimenez. Ms. Jimenez’s attorney thereafter telephoned the Assistant United States

Attorney, who had been charged with her criminal prosecution, to inquire about the release

of the currency and the automobile seized by the United States to Ms. Jimenez. On August

31, the Assistant United States Attorney replied to Ms. Jimenez’s counsel that Customs and

Border Patrol had informed him that “they do intend to seize the assets.” 

The staff of Carmen P. Dominguez at the Office of Fines, Penalties & Forfeitures in

Nogales, Arizona had the responsibility to provide service of the forfeiture proceeding to the

Plaintiffs. Nogales is located several hundred miles east of San Luis. Workers in the

Nogales Office were not aware that the postal service does not provide residential mail

service in the city of San Luis. Thus, the Office mailed notice to Ms. Jimenez at her

residence address – 1373 San Francisco Street, San Luis, Arizona 85349. On September 9,

2009 the mail was returned to the Office as “Not Deliverable as Addressed,” despite the fact

that it was addressed to the accurate residence address of Ms. Jimenez because the postal

service does not provide residential delivery in San Luis. Office employees then searched

the United States Postal Service web site to determine whether there was a mailing address

for Alicia Jimenez in San Luis, Arizona. They found none. 

The Office of Fines Penalties & Forfeitures nevertheless remailed the notice to the

same residence address on October 8, 2009. The second notice was also returned as

undeliverable. The Office thus presumed that “the address which was given was a fake or

bad address.” The Office published a notice of forfeiture in the Arizona Daily Star, a

Tucson, Arizona newspaper that has no significant circulation in San Luis, Arizona.

Otherwise, the Office took no further steps to provide actual written notice to Ms. Jimenez

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and Argimiro Gonzalez of the pending forfeiture.

On February 2, 2010, Counsel for Plaintiffs contacted the Assistant United States

Attorney. Counsel indicated that Plaintiffs had received no notice of forfeiture and

demanded return of the forfeited property due to the United States’s failure to take action to

forfeit the property in the limited time period provided by the statute. When Plaintiffs

determined that the property had already been forfeited, they filed this motion to set aside the

forfeiture pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 983(e). 

DISCUSSION

Title 18 U.S.C. § 983(e) provides that the Petitioners may move to set aside a

declaration of forfeiture with respect to their interest in property if:

(A) the Government knew, or reasonably should have known, of the

moving party’s interest and failed to take reasonable steps to provide such

party with notice; and 

(B) the moving party did not know or have reason to know of the

seizure with sufficient time to file a timely claim. 

All parties acknowledge that the petitioners never received actual knowledge of the

initiation of the forfeiture procedure. Actual notice, however, is not necessary so long as the

government took reasonably-calculated steps to provide those with an interest in property

with actual notice. Dusenbery v. United States, 534 U.S. 161, 170–71 (2002) (citing Mullane

v. Cent. Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306, 315 (1950)). In determining whether

reasonable steps have been taken, “[r]ather than focusing on proof of actual notice ‘the

jurisprudence of constitutional notice appropriately focuses not on what actually occurred,

but rather on the procedures that were in place when notice was attempted.’” U.S. v.

Huggins, 607 F. Supp. 2d 660, 668 (D. Del. 2009) (quoting United States v. One Toshiba

Color Television, 213 F.3d 147, 149 (3d Cir. 2000)).

In Huggins, an inmate moved to set aside a forfeiture of $118,000 in cash contending

that he had not received notice of the forfeiture proceedings while he was incarcerated. The

Court granted summary judgment for the government on the notice issue, however, without

determining whether the inmate received actual notice. The Court did so because it

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determined that the correctional facility at which the inmate/plaintiff was housed had

reasonable procedures assuring that inmates incarcerated at the facility would receive all mail

sent to them. The Huggins Court, analyzing “the procedures that were in place when notice

was attempted,” determined that it was reasonable for the United States to rely on those

procedures in correctly mailing notice of the forfeiture proceedings to the inmate at the

facility. 

Here, unlike Huggins, “the procedures that were in place when notice was attempted,”

would not, in any event, have resulted in service of the notice to the Plaintiffs by mail. The

employees of the Office of Fines, Penalties & Forfeitures in Nogales were in charge of

providing the Plaintiffs with written notice of forfeiture. The employees of the Office in

Nogales did not know, and were not informed, that the United States Postal Service does not

provide residential mail delivery in San Luis. They thus mailed the notice of forfeiture to the

Plaintiffs’ residential address, which would not, in any event, have resulted in service of the

notice on Ms. Jimenez. When the procedures in place by the United States Postal Service

would not have permitted delivery of notice to the Plaintiffs residential address, it was not

reasonable to rely on those procedures to accomplish notice. See also Collette v. United

States, 247 F. App’x 87, 88–89 (9th Cir. 2007) (holding that notice was insufficient because

the notice of forfeiture was returned as undeliverable and the government “failed to make any

further efforts to deliver notices it knew had not reached” the property-owner); Garcia v.

Meza, 235 F.3d 287 (7th Cir. 2000) (holding that forfeiture notice was insufficient where the

notice was returned as undeliverable and the government failed to serve the claimant or to

respond to the claimant’s inquiries); Aero-Medical, Inc. v. United States, 23 F.3d 328,

330–31 (10th Cir. 1994) (requiring the government to make further attempts to serve notice

of a forfeiture where the government becomes aware that attempts to serve via mail have

failed).

/ / /

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When the notice was returned to the Office as undeliverable the second time, again

because the employees of the Office were unaware that there was no residential delivery in

San Luis, the Office assumed that the address provided was false. The United States

provides no evidence that it made any further attempt to identify Ms. Jimenez’s husband,

Argimiro Gonzalez, who was identified as the property owner, or to further determine a way

to provide actual notice to Ms. Jimenez. As the United States acknowledges, Ms. Jimenez

and Argimiro Gonzalez do live at the residence address provided to ICE by Ms. Jimenez on

the date of her arrest. Yet, the United States never attempted personal or alternative service

at that address. Instead, the government proceeded and concluded administrative forfeiture

proceedings without providing notice. These are not reasonable steps to provide notice under

the circumstances. 

The United States asserts that Ms. Jimenez should bear the burden of such a failure,

because she knew that there was no residential mail delivery in San Luis, Arizona when she

provided ICE agents with her residential address on the date of her arrest.

The government provides a supplemental affidavit by Agent Martinez, which was

prepared more than eight months after the seizure. Agent Martinez states that “the purpose

of obtaining this address from Customs and Border Protection Officers was to provide a

mailing address for her to receive the notices regarding the administrative forfeiture action,

and this fact was explained to her at the time the form was completed.” Although Agent

Martinez makes the above statement in his supplemental affidavit, it does not appear that he

makes it based on personal knowledge. He does not testify that he personally explained to

Ms. Jimenez that ICE desired her mailing address instead of her residence address, nor does

he explain that ICE policy would dictate that officers specify that an address was needed to

mail service of process. The Court, therefore, will give the Agent Martinez’s statement no

weight. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(e)(1) (requiring affidavits to be based on personal knowledge);

Casey v. Lewis, 4 F.3d 1516, 1532 (9th Cir. 1993) (stating that affidavits must be made from

personal knowledge reflected in the affidavit itself). 

Even if Agent Martinez had sworn that he had personally provided such specific

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instruction to Ms. Jimenez, it strikes the Court as less than a reasonable basis on which the

government can offload its responsibility to take reasonable steps to provide notice. The

government concedes that Ms. Jimenez provided ICE with her accurate residence address.

It nevertheless asserts that she is blameworthy because she either understood or should have

understood during the course of her arrest that, in light of the lack of residential mail delivery

in San Luis, ICE wanted her mailing address rather than her residence address. The

government does not explain how, if its agents expected Ms. Jimenez to provide them with

a mailing address, they accepted the address that she gave them, which was obviously a

residential address. Such an argument, in the estimation of the Court, does not provide the

United States with a reasonable excuse on which to argue Ms. Jimenez should bear the

responsibility for the United States’ failure to provide the Plaintiffs with actual notice of

administrative forfeiture proceeding in this case.

According to the statute, however, the forfeiture still will not be set aside if the

Plaintiffs had “sufficient time to file a timely claim.” While the Plaintiffs plainly had reason

to know of the seizure, they did not have the information required to allow them “sufficient

time to file a timely claim.” As the Huggins court observed, “knowledge of seizure alone,

without any knowledge of pending forfeiture proceedings or procedures to challenge such

proceedings, did not satisfy due process requirements.” 607 F. Supp.2d at 666. Because the

Plaintiffs here “did not receive any information on how to file a claim for the property or by

when a claim for the property needed to be filed,” the fact alone that they were informed that

the Border Patrol intended to proceed with a seizure action, failed to provide the Plaintiffs

with the process they were due in this action. See id. at 667.

 IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Plaintiffs’ Motion to Set Aside Forfeiture

(Dkt. #1) is GRANTED. The administrative forfeiture of the $10,067.00 seized from Alicia

Jimenez as well as the forfeiture of the vehicle in which she was driving, variously described

as a 1995 or 1996 Chevrolet Tahoe or Blazer or Cadillac Escalade, shall be set aside.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the United States’s Motion to Strike (Dkt. # 13)

is GRANTED IN PART as above specified, and that Plaintiffs’ Motion For Leave To File

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an Amended Reply (Dkt. # 14) is DENIED as moot. 

DATED this 18th day of June, 2010.

Case 2:10-cv-00513-GMS Document 18 Filed 06/18/10 Page 8 of 8