Slabbed coulda been a contender on this topic 😉 but I ended up taking several days off last week so I’m happy to see that Manuel Torres picked up the continuing story of the Titus prosecution as he did a great job with it. The highlights:
Last Wednesday Judge Lemelle granted an unopposed Government request that Titus forfeit certain pieces of property. But the story is not that simple as these pieces of property are also part of Titus’ marital estate, most acquired well before the looting of Garner Services. Mr Titus’ wife, Valerie and minor children reside in one of the houses that was forfeited and Mrs Titus’ mother resides in another. After the plea deal between Titus and the Department of Justice went south, Federal prosecutors claimed in a court filing “that Mark and Valerie Titus, their son and Valerie’s mother had been involved in a “scheme” to block the government’s seizure of the ill-gotten assets.” I harbor some dubiety that there was a “scheme” at all as Titus was fairly open about what he was doing when the “scheme” was in progress but Sal Perricone was handling the case then.
Now at this point I could regale the Slabbed Nation with my own tales from the criminal forfeiture beat and violate rule 301 but unlike certain high level employees of Jim Letten’s office I do not mix work with blogging. That said I did offer some friendly advice to Team Titus based on my own experiences from back in the day and thus was happy to see the following quote from Valerie Titus’ lawyer Frank DeSalvo in Manuel’s story:
DeSalvo said Valerie Titus is in talks with the government to “try to work something out amicably.” He said she has equity in some of the properties as well as “sweat equity,” since she did much of the labor to renovate the homes so they could be rented out.
“She will be entitled to half or a substantial portion of the properties,” DeSalvo said. “We’re trying to reach an agreement with the government.”
Mark Titus is paying his debt to society and there is no good reason to crush his wife and kids. I’m thinking where there is a will there is a way forward and hopefully a deal will be cut. Stay tuned.