[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 83 (Friday, June 23, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6457-S6458]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. DORGAN (for himself, Mr. Grassley, Mr. Durbin, Mr. DeWine, 
        and Ms. Collins):
  S. 3561. A bill to amend the Mandatory Victims' Restitution Act to 
improve restitution for victims of crime, and for other purposes; to 
the Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today I am joined by Senators Grassley, 
Durbin, DeWine and Collins in introducing legislation called the 
Restitution for Victims of Crime Act of 2006. This legislation will 
give Justice Department officials the tools they say are needed to help 
them do a better job of collecting court-ordered restitution and other 
federal criminal debt.
  Over the past several years, the Government Accountability Office 
conducted at my request and the request of others a study of the amount 
of federal criminal debt owed victims and the reasons why much of it is 
still uncollected. The GAO's findings revealed what many victims 
already know, that the current system for collecting restitution and 
other federal criminal debt is failing those it is intended to help.
  Let me describe what criminal debt is. You go to court. Someone is 
convicted of a crime, and a fine is levied. The question is, Is that 
fine being paid? Or you go to court and the judge assigns guilt to a 
defendant and says: You must make restitution. So that becomes a debt.
  The problem is that the amount of uncollected restitution and other 
federal criminal debt has spiraled upward while the percentage of that 
debt ultimately recovered for crime victims has plummeted. The amount 
of uncollected federal criminal debt skyrocketed from $6 billion in 
1996 to over $41 billion by the end of fiscal year 2005. That's a 
nearly sevenfold increase in uncollected criminal debt owed to the 
victims of federal crimes. Some $15 million in criminal debt ordered by 
federal courts in North Dakota remained uncollected at the end of 2005, 
according to information from the Justice Department.
  The percentage of debt that is collected or recovered for crime 
victims in the form of restitution has fallen to embarrassingly low 
levels. According to the GAO, Federal criminal justice officials 
collected an average of just 4 cents on every dollar that has been 
ordered in restitution and other criminal debt. This is restitution 
ordered by the courts to be paid to crime victims from those who 
perpetrated the crime.
  The victims of crime deserve better. At the very least, crime victims 
should not be concerned that their prospects for financial restitution 
are being diminished because criminal offenders are frittering away 
their ill-gotten gains on lavish lifestyles and the like.
  There is plenty of blame to go around for our failure to aggressively 
tackle this criminal debt problem. Some of the Nation's top law 
enforcement officials did not pursue a number of major recommendations 
made by the GAO in 2001 and again in 2004 and 2005 to boost our 
embarrassingly low criminal debt collection rate. These officials only 
started to take this matter seriously after I added language to an 
omnibus spending bill that required the Attorney General to establish a 
joint federal task force to develop a strategic plan for improving 
federal criminal debt collection. Second, Congress has not yet held 
extensive hearings about the federal government's recent track record 
on criminal debt collection and the related GAO reports.
  I understand that criminal debt collection can be a tough job. It may 
be impossible to collect the full amount of restitution owed to victims 
in some cases. Clearly criminal debt collections may be more difficult 
in cases where convicted criminals are in prison, ill-gotten gains are 
already gone or these criminals are without any other financial means 
to pay their full restitution. However, GAO's work also made clear that 
more financial assets could be recovered.
  Let me tell you why I and my colleagues have introduced this 
legislation. I had the GAO review a number of

[[Page S6458]]

white-collar financial fraud cases and report what is happening with 
respect to these cases.
  I will cite some examples.
  One offender, someone who was judged to be guilty criminally in the 
Federal court system, and his immediate family owned and resided at 
property that was worth millions of dollars. Yet he was not making the 
full restitution that had been ordered by the court to the victim.
  Two offenders in Federal court cases who were ordered to make 
restitution to victims took overseas trips while on supervised release 
but had not made restitution to the victims.
  One offender and his family established trusts, foundations, and 
corporations for their assets about the same time that they closed many 
of their bank and brokerage accounts and had not paid restitution to 
the victims of their crime.
  Over the course of several years, one offender converted to personal 
use hundreds of millions of dollars obtained through illegal white-
collar business schemes.
  Several years prior to one judgment, one offender's minor child, who 
is now an adult, was given the offender's entire company. As of the 
completion of the GAO's work, that company had employed the offender. 
Restitution still had not been paid to the victim.
  One offender and his family rented a very lavishly furnished 
residence--which they had previously owned--from a relative. The 
offender still had not made restitution he was ordered to pay.
  Again, unpaid restitution and other criminal debt has gone from $6 
billion to $41 billion over the last decade. We think that is an 
outrage. We have worked with the Justice Department as a result of the 
three GAO reports, and because of that, we have put together a 
bipartisan piece of legislation. The legislation is comprised of the 
comprehensive package of recommendations by the Justice Department that 
stem in large part from the work of the Task Force on Improving the 
Collection of Criminal Debt. Justice Department officials believe these 
changes will remove many of the current impediments to better debt 
collection.
  For example, Justice Department officials described a circumstance 
where they were prevented by a court from accessing $400,000 held in a 
criminal offender's 401(k) plan to pay a $4 million restitution debt to 
a victim because that court said the defendant was complying with a 
$250 minimum monthly payment plan and that payment schedule precluded 
any other enforcement actions. Our bill would remove impediments like 
this in the future.
  This legislation will also address a major problem identified by the 
GAO for officials in charge of criminal debt collection; that is, many 
years can pass between the date a crime occurs and the date a court 
orders restitution. This gives criminal defendants ample opportunity to 
spend or hide their ill-gotten gains. Our bill sets up pre-conviction 
procedures for preserving assets for victims' restitution. These tools 
will help ensure that financial assets traceable to a crime are 
available when a court imposes a final restitution order on behalf of a 
victim. These tools are similar to those already used by Federal 
officials in some asset forfeiture cases and upheld by the courts.
  Our bill has the support of the administration, and the support of 
many victims organizations.
  I have a long list of them: The National Center for Victims of Crime, 
Mothers Against Drunk Driving, National Organization for Victims 
Assistance--all of these organizations support the legislation we are 
introducing today--the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, 
Parents of Murdered Children, Inc., Justice Solutions, the National 
Network to End Domestic Violence, National Association of VOCA 
Assistance Administrators. The list is rather substantial. It also 
includes U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley in Fargo, ND, who said this 
legislation ``represents important progress toward ensuring that 
victims of crime are one step closer to being made whole.''
  That is the basis on which we introduce this legislation. Among other 
things, our bill would clarify that court-ordered Federal criminal 
restitution is due immediately in full upon imposition, just like in 
civil cases and that any payment schedule ordered by a court is only a 
minimum obligation of a convicted offender. It would allow Federal 
prosecutors to access financial information about a defendant in the 
possession of the U.S. Probation Office--without the need for a court 
order. This legislation would also clarify that final restitution 
orders can be enforced by criminal justice officials through the Bureau 
of Prisons' Inmate Financial Responsibility Program. Our bill would 
help ensure better recovery of restitution by requiring a court to 
enter a pre-conviction restraining order or injunction, require a 
satisfactory performance bond, or take other action necessary to 
preserve property that is traceable to the commission of a charged 
offense or to preserve other nonexempt assets if the court determines 
that it is in the interest of justice to do so. In addition, this 
legislation would clarify that a victim's attorney fees may be included 
in restitution orders, including cases where such fees are a 
foreseeable result from the commission of the crime, are incurred to 
help recover lost property or expended by a victim to defend against 
third party lawsuits resulting from the defendant's crime. It would 
also allow courts in their discretion to order immediate restitution to 
those that have suffered economic losses or serious bodily injury or 
death as the result of environmental felonies. Under current law, 
courts can impose restitution in such cases as a condition of probation 
or supervised release but this means that many victims of environment 
crimes must wait for years to be compensated for their losses, if at 
all.
  Let me make a couple of final points. First, while this legislation 
reflects the entire set of recommendations from the Justice Department 
to improve Federal criminal debt collection, it may not include every 
possible improvement to the current system. For instance, the GAO has 
suggested making willful failure to pay court-ordered restitution a 
criminal offense. This is already the case for criminal defendants who 
willfully fail to pay a court-ordered fine. It is my hope the Senate 
Judiciary Committee will consider this and any other helpful 
improvements when it reviews this legislation.
  In summary, Senator Grassley and myself and others believe that it is 
outrageous that unpaid criminal debt ordered by Federal courts to be 
paid by criminals now exceeds $40 billion. That is wrong and it ought 
to be dealt with. Our legislation will do so in a thoughtful, 
bipartisan way. It is legislation that is supported by the 
administration and by Republicans and Democrats who have joined in this 
legislation.
  With the Justice Department's help, we can make criminal debt 
collection a top priority once again. That is good news for the 
criminal justice system and great news for crime victims.
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