Tolling a Statute of Limitations Under 18 U.S.C. 3292

Procedural Matters/Statutes of Limitation; 18 USC 3292, FCPA, Statute of Limitations

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There is a legislative statute of limitations tolling mechanism, 18 U.S.C. § 3292, potentially available to the US government when it seeks evidence from other governments, that some of us were not even aware of until Judge Scheindlin's recent decision in United States v. Kozeny, 493 F. Supp. 2d 693(S.D.N.Y. June 21, 2007) (revised slightly on reconsideration but leaving the original reasoning intact, at 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 52758 (July 16, 2007)).  If you have a case where the government may have sought evidence from abroad, the decision is really a must read as it may offer a statute of limitations defense to the indictment.  It basically holds that any tolling order won't be effective if, by the time of the order, the statute had already run.  Puts the government and Court in a quandary on a section 3292 application, of course:  how do they know when the statute will have run if the investigation is still ongoing?  For more on this, see Lisa Cahill's NYLJ article on August 27, 2007 (attached at right).