United States v. Surgent, _ F. Supp. 2d _, 2009 WL 2525137, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 72563, 04-CR-364 (E.D.N.Y. Aug 17, 2009) (Gleeson, J.)

In a ruling protecting client’s home from forfeiture, the court issued a groundbreaking 57-page opinion, reasoning that ‘money judgment forfeitures’ are invalid because they are not specifically authorized by Congress, applying a similar analysis to that of the United States Supreme Court eight years later, in Honeycutt v. United States, 581 U.S. ___, 137 S. Ct. 1626 (2017), barring the application of joint and several liability to federal criminal forfeiture cases.