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Equitable Sharing Ceremonies

Equitable sharing ceremonies are meant to foster goodwill. They present a unique opportunity for federal and state and local law enforcement to bask in the collective limelight of a job well done. Such ceremonies should be inclusive and not exclusive. Officials from the United States Attorney's office, the federal seizing agencies and the U.S. Marshal should routinely be included in these ceremonies. One of the goals we must all work toward is expediting the processing of equitable sharing requests. While equitable sharing ceremonies are encouraged, they should be scheduled as quickly as possible once the cash and/or tangible property is available for sharing. Accumulating sharing checks and property for purposes of presentation is discouraged where the recipient agency does not concur -- particularly where large amounts of money are involved. Not only are the funds critically important to some agencies; the interest that can be earned on these funds is also available to be used for law enforcement use. Requests for expedited processing of an equitable sharing request in order to have a presentation ceremony can be extremely disruptive to the system. Please plan ceremonies sufficiently in advance to allow the processing of requests in the normal course of business. On occasions when their travel schedules have permitted, the President, the Vice-President, and the Attorney General have personally presented significant equitable sharing checks. United States Attorneys and seizing agencies should contact AFMLS as far in advance as possible if they become aware of an upcoming significant sharing opportunity in their district. A significant amount of staff work must be done to prepare for ceremonies involving these officials. As a general rule, the checks presented by the President have been $1 million or more and checks presented by the Attorney General have been $250,000.00 or more. Regardless of who presents the check, it is the responsibility of the federal seizing agency or the United States Attorney's office taking the lead role in the ceremony to contact the state and local recipients and to plan the presentation. [cited in USAM 9-116.310]