BENTON – Benjamin Barry Kramer, prisoner for life, claims the United States made $78 million on assets it seized to satisfy a $60 million forfeiture judgment.
A suit he filed for recovery five years ago paid a dividend in June, when U.S. District Judge Phil Gilbert denied a motion to dismiss it.
Gilbert wrote that the government failed to address Kramer’s claim beyond a brief parenthetical stating he filed it after a statute of limitations expired.
“This half hearted argument is not sufficient to convince the court that Kramer’s Federal Tort Claims Act claim as pleaded in the amended complaint should be dismissed on this basis,” Gilbert wrote.
He found it unnecessary to determine at that time whether the government collected too much, and ordered the government and Kramer to file dispositive motions by Aug. 31.
Kramer, age 65, made a fortune selling a product people now buy in stores.
In 1990, Southern Illinois jurors convicted him and others of conspiring to import marijuana by the tons throughout the 1980s.
Late judge James Foreman sentenced Kramer for life without possibility of parole and ordered the $60 million forfeiture.
Foreman renewed the forfeiture judgment in 1998, and Gilbert renewed it in 2008.
Kramer sued in 2015, without counsel, claiming the government held more of his assets than it had a legal right to keep.
“When the government has seized more money than was identified in the forfeiture order, it qualifies as property that has been seized but not forfeited," Kramer wrote.
He wrote that the government discovered his ownership interest in Bell Gardens Bicycle Club, a California card casino, where in 1983, he arranged to launder money by investing in the casino.
Kramer wrote that in 1990, it was worth $150 to $200 million with more than 2,000 employees and more than $1 million a month in proceeds to claimants.
By 1993, the government garnered effective control with a 55 percent ownership interest.
Kramer wrote that the government operated Bicycle Club from 1990 to at least May 18, 1999, when it sold its interest. He submitted that he held possessory interest in a third off all revenues and assets.
"Plaintiff affirms that he has never once received any accounting of the assets collected in his name and applied to his monetary judgment," he wrote.
"By the federal bureau of prisons reckoning plaintiff has only been credited with paying $845.35 towards the judgment.”
He wrote that two defendants obtained settlement agreements providing for their release following litigation of a claim that the government seized excess property.
He requested judgment of $18,102,038.16.
He moved to recruit counsel, and former magistrate judge Phil Frazier denied the motion in 2016.
“If Kramer’s claim that he is entitled to a sum in excess of $18 million has substantial merit, he should be able to locate an attorney who practices in this district and is willing to provide representation on a contingency basis," Frazier wrote.
He didn’t locate lawyers who practiced in the district, but he located three who applied for temporary admission.
David Goldberg of Chicago appeared first, and Edward Burch and David Michael of San Francisco followed.
In January 2018, the government moved to dismiss Kramer’s suit.
Gilbert granted a joint motion to stay the suit for settlement discussions in July 2018, but talks failed and he lifted the stay in May 2019.
He dismissed ten counts of the suit this June, but ruled that Kramer could pursue the claim for excess seizure.
“Kramer has been informed by an official at the Bureau of Prisons that only $845.35 has been applied, leaving $59,999,154.65 still due," Gilbert wrote.
“Understandably, he is concerned.”
He wrote that the government didn’t convince him that he lacked power to order an accounting.
Southern Illinois jurisdiction disguises Kramer’s Florida reputation. Kramer at one point challenged Southern Illinois jurisdiction in a Florida federal court, but a district judge and Eleventh Circuit appellate judges found enough crimes occurred in Madison and St. Clair counties to establish venue.
The Eleventh Circuit judges who reviewed Florida proceedings about him in 1991 sounded like they reviewed a thrilling movie.
“Ben Kramer is colorful with his share of audacity and boldness,” they wrote.
They saluted him as national offshore power board racing champion of 1986, and reported that he won a $50,000 race from Miami to New York.
“Ben was injured seriously prior to the criminal trial when he tried to escape via helicopter from Metropolitan Correctional Center in Miami,” they wrote.
They wrote that he grabbed a rope ladder dangling from a helicopter and got in. The helicopter began spinning, its tail hit the wire above the yard, and it catapulted over the fence.
Kramer also was convicted for ordering the 1987 assassination of rival Don Aronow, a builder of cigarette speed boats - "a popular choice among cocaine runners," according to a Wikipedia account of Aronow. In 1996, Kramer pleaded no contest to manslaughter and agreed to a 19-year sentence to run concurrent to his life federal prison term for smuggling pot.