Opinion ID: 790408
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Other Rights Asserted by Petitioners

Text: 45 Petitioners' other arguments unrelated specifically to restitution come in a variety of forms. They assert variously that some victims were denied rights to confer with the attorney for the Government; that the manner of obtaining forfeited assets as part of the Victims Fund violates regulations regarding sharing of forfeited assets with those who committed the crimes at issue; and that they did not get notice of certain aspects of the various settlement agreements in the other court forums that made up the entire interconnected plan for ensuring that $715 million is available for distribution to the victims. As to each of these arguments, they are either without factual support or a legal basis, or they were implicitly considered in an appropriate fashion by the district court in its extensive successful efforts to provide notice of the proposed settlement and to solicit and hear objections to it. 46 First, no petitioner has alleged that it asked the Government to confer with it and was denied the opportunity to do so. Nothing in the CVRA requires the Government to seek approval from crime victims before negotiating or entering into a settlement agreement. The CVRA requires only that the court provide victims with an opportunity to be heard concerning a proposed settlement agreement, and the court provided the victims with a full opportunity to do so in this case. Second, the district court did not abuse its discretion by approving a settlement that would send funds to Adelphia, because the Government may by statute compromise claims in the context of a forfeiture. See 21 U.S.C. § 853(i)(2). Finally, the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining that, given the time delays and the difficulty of identifying victims and calculating losses, the Government gave reasonable notice to crime victims in the extensive alternative notice procedures it employed.