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ELIZABETH A. STRANGE

First Assistant United States Attorney District of Arizona

KEVIN M. RAPP (Ariz. Bar No. 14249, kevin.rapp@usdoj.gov)

MARGARET PERLMETER (Ariz. Bar No. 024805, margaret.perlmeter@usdoj.gov)

PETER S. KOZINETS (Ariz. Bar No. 019856, peter.kozinets@usdoj.gov) 

ANDREW C. STONE (Ariz. Bar No. 026543, andrew.stone@usdoj.gov)

Assistant U.S. Attorneys

40 N. Central Avenue, Suite 1800

Phoenix, Arizona 85004-4408

Telephone (602) 514-7500

JOHN J. KUCERA (Cal. Bar No. 274184,john.kucera@usdoj.gov)

Special Assistant U.S. Attorney

312 N. Spring Street, Suite 1200

Los Angeles, CA 90012

Telephone (213) 894-3391

JOHN P. CRONAN

Acting Assistant Attorney General

Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice

REGINALD E. JONES (Miss. Bar No. 102806, reginald.jones4@usdoj.gov)

Senior Trial Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice

Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section 

950 Pennsylvania Ave N.W., Room 2116

Washington, D.C. 20530

Telephone (202) 616-2807 

Attorneys for Plaintiff

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

United States of America,

Plaintiff, 

v. 

Michael Lacey, et al.,

Defendants.

CR-18-422-PHX-SPL (BSB) 

UNITED STATES’ RESPONSE TO 

MOTION FOR DISCLOSURE OF 

DOCUMENTS RELATED TO 

PRETRIAL SEIZURE OF 

DEFENDANTS’ ASSETS

On May 11, 2018, the defendants filed a motion seeking to compel the United States 

to disclose certain documents related to the pretrial seizure of assets. See CR 141. That 

motion is now moot. On May 18, 2018, the United States provided defense counsel with

thirteen of twenty-two warrants (seizing 62 accounts). See Exhibit A (email from Shannen 

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Beckman to defense counsel disclosing the first of 22 seizure warrants and supporting 

affidavits). As of the filing of this motion the United States is awaiting the unsealing of 

the remaining nine warrants. The balance of the warrants will be provided by the close of 

business on Friday May 18 or on Monday May 21. It is expected that defense counsel will 

soon inform the Court that they are withdrawing their motion and that, in their view, there 

is no need to hold the hearing that is currently scheduled for next Wednesday, May 23, 

2018. 

Because the parties’ dispute concerning the disclosure of pretrial seizure-related 

documents is now resolved, it is unnecessary at this juncture to provide a point-by-point 

response to the various factual and legal arguments contained in the defendants’ motion. 

Nevertheless, because the United States strongly disputes any suggestion that it acted 

unreasonably during the discussions with defense counsel that preceded the filing of the 

motion, it wishes to share some additional background information. 

As the Court is aware, the parties stipulated to a detailed scheduling order in this 

case. See CR 131. Although the scheduling order gave the United States until December 

2018 to meet its Rule 16 obligations, the United States voluntarily agreed to produce the 

first wave of discovery—which is expected to be voluminous—within 60 days (i.e., by July 

1, 2018). See CR 131 at 1 n.2. Furthermore, when one member of the defense team 

expressed a preference to receive the first wave by the end of May 2018, the United States 

agreed to this request, too.

The United States has dedicated substantial resources over the past few weeks 

toward satisfying this obligation (including seeking unsealing orders in multiple 

jurisdictions, obtaining support from discovery specialists in the U.S. Department of 

Justice, and conducting evidence reviews.) The United States’ objective has been to pull

together the discoverable material in a single, comprehensive, well-organized, and easyto-understand package. The United States’ expedited efforts are proceeding successfully

and it is expected that each defendant will receive a package of hard drives and CDs/DVDs 

before the end of May 2018 containing in excess of 7 million pages of discovery.

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Notwithstanding all of this, several members of the defense team have contacted 

members of the prosecution team over the past few weeks and requested immediate 

assistance with various issues. The United States has, without exception, responded to 

these requests promptly and attempted to meet-and-confer with the defense in good faith 

in an attempt to resolve the issues without the need for judicial intervention. It is regrettable 

that, although the defense chose to include, as an exhibit to its motion, one of the letters 

that was sent to the government as part of this process, the defense declined to include the 

government’s response. The email included with this pleading as Exhibit B summarizes 

some of the government’s many efforts to go beyond its discovery obligations over the past 

few weeks.

As for the particular documents that were the subject of the (now moot) motion to 

compel, they are the applications that were filed, under seal, in the Central District of 

California to obtain various civil seizure warrants. The warrants were executed in April 

2018. Under the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 (CAFRA), the United States 

ordinarily need not even initiate a civil forfeiture proceeding until 150 days from the date 

of seizure. Nevertheless, in the spirit of cooperation, here the United States informed the 

defense that it would move to unseal the applications from the Central District of California 

and include them as part of the initial wave of discovery to be produced by the end of May 

2018—a production schedule several months ahead of what would ordinarily occur. When 

the defense expressed dissatisfaction with this offer, the United States further offered to 

produce the underlying financial records on which the seizure applications were based. See

Exhibit B. The defense initially accepted this offer but later rejected it and filed the motion 

to compel.

Respectfully submitted this 18th day of May, 2018.

ELIZABETH A. STRANGE

First Assistant United States Attorney

District of Arizona

/s Kevin Rapp

KEVIN M. RAPP

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MARGARET PERLMETER

PETER S. KOZINETS

ANDREW C. STONE

Assistant U.S. Attorneys

JOHN J. KUCERA

Special Assistant U.S. Attorney

JOHN P. CRONAN

Acting Assistant Attorney General

Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice

REGINALD E. JONES

Senior Trial Attorney

U.S. Department of Justice, Criminal Division

Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section

Certificate of Service

I hereby certify that on this date, I electronically transmitted the attached document to the 

Clerk’s Office using the CM/ECF system for filing and transmittal of a Notice of Electronic 

Filing to the following CM/ECF registrants: Anne Chapman, Erin McCampbell, Gregory 

Zamora, James Grant, Larry Debus, Lawrence Kazan, Lee Stein, Paul Cambria, Robert 

Corn-Revere, Ronald London, Janey Henze Cook, John Littrell, Kenneth Miller, Thomas 

Bienart, Jr., Bruce Feder, Michael Kimerer, Rhonda Neff, KC Maxwell, David Wakukawa, 

Michael Piccarreta, Stephen Weiss. 

s/Sally Hawley

U.S. Attorney’s Office

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