UPDATED 12:29 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) A default notice to real estate and more than $65.8 million seized from the bank accounts of ASD President Andy Bowdoin has been docketed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
A clerk entered the notice this morning in response to an affidavit from the prosecution last week. The notice is dated Nov. 13. Today’s filing means the government is one step closer to perfecting title to the property and money, which were seized in an August 2008 forfeiture complaint.
“[I]t is this 13th day of November, 2009, declared that the defendants . . . are in default,” the clerk’s notice reads.
Judge Rosemary Collyer will have to issue a formal order of forfeiture for the government to exercise permanent control of the assets. The timeline for such an order is unclear, but prosecutors say the time for filing claims has expired.
Last week, Collyer rejected a bid Bowdoin launched in February to reassert claims to the money. She also has rejected dozens of bids by pro se litigants to gain standing in the case, including a denial of 13 motions on a single day last week.
In August, pro se motions to gain standing in the case — all of them featuring a legal template shared by members of ASD — began to flood the courthouse. Collyer rejected the arguments of each of the prospective litigants.