The Nevada Supreme Court is weighing a lawsuit that could upend how state and local law enforcement can take property they believe to be connected to a crime, a process that results in millions of dollars being taken from Nevadans annually. 

The case comes after the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department seized $57,000 in cryptocurrency that a Florida man received for selling his car because the car was allegedly connected to a crime. The department froze his bank account, and he didn't get the money back until he filed a lawsuit.

The man, Sebastian Filutowski, had another case before the high court last year, arguing the saga violated the Nevada and U.S. Constitution's prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure. Justices declined to intervene in the case, sending it back to a lower court.

But the latest one, filed in April, is asking for more. Filutowski wants the court to nullify state law and other partnerships related to forfeiture. He also has asked the court to make major procedural changes, including having the process take place in a criminal, not civil, hearing, establishing stricter deadlines and giving people whose property has been taken more chances to get it back before a trial.

"Civil forfeitures of property, whether created through a policy enactment or by statute, threaten many of the constitutional rights Nevadans cherish," John Fortin, the attorney representing Filutowski, said in a statement. "Filutowski has identified several in his appeal, and we hope that the Nevada Supreme Court will agree with our position and enter a permanent injunction to restore the Constitution's protections for all Nevadans."

The latest case previously went before a Clark County judge who ruled against Filutowski last year and said he did not prove that the money seized was directly related to the laws and policies that he is seeking to nullify. 

Named defendants in the case, including the attorney general's office and Las Vegas police, have until July 20 to file their reply. Neither office provided comment.

It's the latest case that Fortin has filed before the state's highest court related to the government's seizure of property, also known as civil forfeiture. He previously represented a Carson City family whose home was seized for years by law enforcement, but justices ultimately did not issue a ruling because a settlement was reached.

The civil forfeiture process has two parts: seizure, in which authorities take possession of certain money or property allegedly linked to criminal activity, and forfeiture, where the government seeks to keep the property that was seized. When the government keeps the money, it can go to a variety of sources, including the state's education fund or a law enforcement agency's forfeiture account.

From July 2024 to July 2025, Nevada law enforcement agencies seized more than $3 million worth of property, ultimately keeping about $2 million, according to a report from the attorney general's office.

The lawsuit is backed from groups typically on opposite sides, including the libertarian Cato Institute and American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada.

Matthew Cavedon, the director of the Cato Institute's Project on Criminal Justice, said civil forfeiture often disproportionately affects people alongside racial and ethnic lines because it tends to target people who do transactions in cash.

"When you put all of that together, it turns out you build quite a coalition of people who are really concerned," he said.

Rick McCann, former president and founder of the Nevada Association of Public Safety Officers, said "there has to be a balancing interest" between seizing property during a criminal investigation and returning the property without violating people's right to due process.

"There's a law enforcement absolute need to seize property as part of the evidentiary value of prosecuting criminal cases," he said. "But there's also — and we sometimes forget this — the right of those who have responsible, rightful ownership to be able to … follow the system thoroughly and expeditiously recover property."

How the case could change things

Filutowski waited 199 days to get his property back — a timeline that the lawsuit says violated his right to due process.

Under existing law, prosecutors have 120 days to file a forfeiture complaint in civil court and 120 days to serve the defendant. 

To make up for this, the lawsuit is asking the court to require the government to hold a hearing to establish probable cause for seizing property within 48 hours. If there is a good enough reason, this timeline can be extended to 14 days. 

If probable cause is not met, a judge should require that the property be returned, the lawsuit says.

If the government meets the probable cause burden, the lawsuit asks that a property owner "be afforded a meaningful opportunity" to challenge the seizing of their property and show they are "innocent owners." It also says the government should allow property owners to secure their property by posting bond pending a trial over the forfeiture.

The lawsuit also asks that forfeiture proceedings be included in the main criminal proceeding, as opposed to a separate civil hearing. Holding two different hearings, it argues, violates the U.S. Constitution's "double jeopardy" prohibition on facing multiple prosecutions for the same offense.

This argument was central to the earlier case involving the seized Carson City home. However, because it ended in a settlement, the court never issued a ruling.

The suit also asks the court to stop the state's use of a program that allows law enforcement agencies to partner with the federal government to keep property, while receiving a share of the profits.

And it also asks it to stop the use of Metro's Cyber Investigative Group Policy — a program that handles cryptocurrency-related cases, which the plaintiff says evades the forfeiture process and violates due process and other constitutional protections.

"The ask here is to simply say that Nevada's elected officials are the ones who decide whether or not Nevada highway patrol gets to seize people's property and profit from it," Cavedon said. "If Nevada doesn't have control over its own police officers, then what on Earth kind of state authority, state sovereignty does it enjoy?"

What comes next

The court's decision could rest in large part over whether it thinks Filutowski has standing to challenge the state's forfeiture system.

The lower court's ruling held that he did not. It said he failed to provide sufficient evidence that the taking of his money had connections to forfeiture processes or the state's partnership with federal law enforcement agencies. It also said that because the money was returned, he is not warranted to stop Metro's cryptocurrency policy.

However, the appeal to the state Supreme Court claims the seizure of his money — even if it was returned — is an arm of the state's forfeiture process.

"Metro attempted to forfeit Filutowski's property, thereby giving him standing to obtain an injunction against the laws and policies governing property forfeitures in Nevada," the lawsuit said.

If the court agrees, the issue would then likely fall to the Legislature to amend procedures to comply with the court's order. It is also possible for the court to order some but not all of the requests. 

Randy Fiedler, the amicus chair of Nevada Attorneys for Criminal Justice, a group of lawyers focused on improving the judicial system, likened the implications of this case to the landmark 2020 state Supreme Court ruling on bail.

The high court ruled the state's existing law on pretrial bail to be unconstitutional, and it ordered several changes to the bail system. The next year, the Legislature passed a bill to comply with the decision.

"It's an uncomfortable situation for trial courts to be coming up with a procedure on the spot," said Fiedler, whose group filed a brief in support of the lawsuit. "Usually it's a lot better when the Legislature comes in and says, 'Here's the procedure we're going to have.'"