In the not too distant future, Bruce Wayne has given up the cape and cowl and gone into isolation. His company is taken over by corporate industrialists and Gotham City has changed into a cyber aged city complete with flying cars and still wracked with crime. With no Batman to fear and cower from gangs like the Jokers run rampant over the lower, less affluent levels of Gotham and teenager Terry McGinnis tries to get through life with a split family and all the usual high school problems. When his dad is murdered because of something he learns at his job for Wayne Powers Terry seeks out the reclusive Bruce Wayne for help from Batman and ends up taking up the mantle of the Caped Crusader (though without the Cape). After starting out by turning the CEO of Wayne/Powers, Derek Powers into a radioactive supervillain (as opposed to a corporate shark regular villain), fighting an assassin made of ink, and going up against a bullied teen who gains control of a giant construction robot, Terry meets his first of the old Batman’s rogues’ gallery.
Season 1 Episode 5 finds Batman up against a resurrected Mr. Freeze. After his last fight with Bruce’s Batman in Batman and Mr. Freeze: Sub Zero he’s still alive, or at least his head is. Powers/Blight is trying to cure himself of his radiation poisoning so he is looking into cloning himself a new body. Dr. Stephanie Lake, lead scientist on the project, suggests they test it on Mr. Freeze since his genetic condition is similar to Blight’s. In his new clone body Mr. Freeze sets out to redeem his past misdeeds by starting the Norah Freeze foundation in memory of his late wife. He does this with money that he says was from his “legitimate holdings” and put in a blind trust before he went to prison. But would he have had any money that could have been put away before he went to prison, or would the government have seized it upon his conviction using the Criminal Forfeiture Laws?
The answer turns out to be complicated. At its base the Criminal Forfeiture law is designed to make sure that people don’t profit from criminal activity (Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure 32.2). If you rob a bank and they convict you of robbing a bank you obviously don’t get to keep the money you stole. You also don’t get to keep the Ferrari you bought with the money you stole from the bank. That all makes sense and seems fair, however on the ground though things are rarely that clear cut and criminal forfeiture has drawn significant criticism. I won’t go into too much detail, but google ‘Criminal Forfeiture Controversy’ and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Suffice to say, it’s frequently used to seize legitimate assets of people who are on the low end of criminal activity. For a real world example (though with some details tweaked for the sake of privacy), a person is drawing a pension from being disabled and is dabbling with the low end of the drug trade. They are caught, arrested, and convicted but keep no transaction records. How do you sort out what money was from the disability and what was from the drug trade. Was used from one for the other? You get the idea. Unfortunately, with the all consuming grind of the justice system and the drive of judicial efficiency, the system is not always prepared to look into the little details and will routinely seize what prosecutors ask for without much scrutiny.
Now let’s look at Mr. Freeze’s situation, which is likely not as complicated as the last example. It would have probably looked something like this: Mr. Freeze gets charged with his various acts of villainy, goes to trial or pleads guilty and the Government has to show, or Freeze has to admit, that whatever they want to seize is proceeds of his criminal activity. If they don’t agree, then there is a seperate trial where the Government would need to show by a preponderance of the evidence (51% more likely than not, as opposed to the guilt phase of a trial where they have to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt) that whatever money they seek to seize is the fruit of his criminal exploits (which they’ve already shown at the guilt phase of the proceedings that happen prior to the forfeiture proceedings). While it’s possible that the Government would have agreed that some of Freeze’s money was legitimate and unrelated to his criminal activity it seems unlikely for two reasons. First, Governments are always happy to take money, second (and more important/less snarky) Freeze doesn’t have any legitimate holdings. If you look back at Dr. Victor Freeze’s first appearance in Batman TAS (Season 1 episode 3, Heart of Ice for those keeping score) we see that Dr. Freeze was broke and embezzling from Gothcorp to fund his research on cryogenics, so he can save his wife’s life. This is what leads to him being fired by his boss (voiced by Mark Hamill oddly enough but I’ll leave the theories that Joker created Mr. Freeze to you) and flung into the cryogenic sciency stuff where he becomes Mr. Freeze (apparently becoming a supervillain gets your doctorate revoked).
So, if Mr. Freeze doesn’t have any legitimate holdings, what if he put one over on the prosecutors in his original case(s), what happens then? The short answer is that it’s so complicated the prosecutors in Neo-Gothem would be wise to just let him donate the money and start the charity with an agreement that he has no direct control over the charity’s operations. If, however, the Neo-Gotham Prosecutor’s Office want to do something about Freeze’s money, if they want to wade into that quagmire, what can they do? They can’t do a ton with the criminal forfeiture statutes because under that law any action that the Government takes has to be taken at the time of the sentencing and since we’re several decades too late for that they are out of luck with that particular statutory scheme. However, they have two more tools that they can look into. One is civil forfeiture which the government can use to start the case City of Gotham City vs. Money that Mr. Freeze Stole, where the money itself is a defendant and if Mr. Freeze wants to do something about it he has to ask the Court to let him intervene. That would let the prosecutors attempt to take control over the funds by showing by a preponderance of the evidence that the money was connected to criminal activity. That might be a somewhat difficult case for them to make based on what records existed from the time the trust was created back in the TAS era, but their burden is still only more likely than not so it’s possible. The Government’s other option is to try to seize under a new criminal case on the theory that Mr. Freeze has been actively engaged in a criminal cover up to conceal the proceeds of his criminal activity, more commonly known as fraud. They could dig into his tax returns and see if there’s anything there, but since he’s a head in a jar living off the grid who knows what lies down that road. Bottom line though, if the Government wants your money and you’re a criminal, it is very likely that they get your money. Take what lessons you will from that.
