# The civil forfeiture action against Ken Lay: what's happening?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-forfeiture-action-against-ken-lay-whats-happening/735049>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 18, 2015, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-forfeiture-action-against-ken-lay-whats-happening/735049 "2015-10-18T21:17:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![choie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/choie/32/7829_2.png) [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-forfeiture-action-against-ken-lay-whats-happening/735049/1 "2015-10-18T21:17:36Z")

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I know this is digging up old bones, but I was just reading an [old thread about Ken Lay’s death, and the fact that as a result of his having died before he’d had time to continue his appeal, his conviction was vacated](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=378447).

Since he _was_ considered guilty earlier, there was some discussion in the thread about how the Enron victims/claimants should be allowed to sue the Lay estate for damages; considering how many people were financially damaged, if not ruined, by his and Skilling’s (among others) actions, the thought was that Lay’s family shouldn’t benefit from his ill-gotten booty… even if now, legally speaking, it was not ill-gotten. (Given the previous conviction we can’t say it was well-gotten either, I guess; just… neutrally gotten.)

Anyway, that being said, as far as my research has shown, apparently punitive damages aren’t possible, but compensatory ones are. (Is that right?)

Here’s what I know now:

- The IRS tried to get the taxes owed by suing his estate. [This case was decided in the Lay estate’s favor in 2011](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-08-29/enron-ceo-kenneth-lay-bests-irs-in-tax-court).

- The government is still seeking a $12.6 million “civil forfeiture action.” [This case is listed as “pending”](http://www.justice.gov/criminal-vns/case/layk) in the [Justice.gov](http://Justice.gov) website listing “Pending Criminal Division” cases. The date of this was October 7, 2006–but interestingly there’s a date of June 2015 as an update. Doesn’t say what the specific update was.

But I can’t find anything more recent related to this forfeiture action. My questions are:

1. Can any legally fluent person help find out what the status of the government’s civil forfeiture action is?

2. Does the above action have anything to do with the ‘regular’ (i.e. individual) claimants who were mentioned in the above thread as maybe being able to get compensatory damages? If not, _is_ there a different civil case going on there?

3. Probably a dumb question, but… why is a _civil forfeiture action_ listed under “Pending _Criminal_ Division” on the [Justice.gov](http://Justice.gov) site?

Hope this makes sense.