Opinion ID: 3011013
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: introduction

Text: On December 17, 1997, a district court jury convicted Allen W. Stewart, formerly a partner in a Philadelphia law 3 firm, of 135 counts of mail fraud, 18 U.S.C. S 1341, wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. S 1343, money laundering, 18 U.S.C. S 1957, and racketeering, 18 U.S.C. S 1962(c). On August 12, 1998, the court sentenced Stewart to 180 months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release and required him to forfeit substantially all of his known assets and to pay $60 million in restitution. Stewart appeals from the judgment of conviction and sentence, raising many legal issues as to why he is entitled to a new trial or an acquittal. Stewart also challenges the district court's forfeiture of his personal Merrill Lynch account (the Account) as substitute assets under 18 U.S.C. S 982(b)(1). The government cross-appeals the district court's ruling that the Account was not directly forfeitable under 18 U.S.C. S 982(a)(1) as property involved in or traceable to Stewart's money laundering activities. For the reasons that follow, we will affirm Stewart's conviction and sentence and the other orders from which he appeals. We, however, will reverse on the government's cross-appeal and thus will modify the district court's forfeiture order so that the Account is forfeited directly rather than as a substitute asset. As modified, we will affirm the forfeiture order.