The Miami-Dade County Sheriff's Office is facing a legal challenge over an arrangement under which a private law firm represents the sheriff in civil forfeiture cases and keeps a share of whatever is seized — 20 to 35 percent of the proceeds, plus an additional 5 percent on appeal — according to court papers filed in October by Miami mobile phone distributors and retailers and reported this week by the Miami Herald and the ABA Journal.

Source: ABA Journal — Sheriff allows law firm to profit from policing, lawsuit alleges, Nov. 10, 2026

The companies allege in the court papers that their bank accounts were frozen last year and that more than $45.2 million was seized in civil forfeiture cases handled by the firm. They further allege, according to the Miami Herald's reporting summarized by the ABA Journal, that an additional $2.6 billion has been targeted for seizure. The sheriff's office has not been reported in this coverage as answering the allegations, and every figure in the case remains an allegation until a court rules.

The lawyer at the center of the deal

The firm is run by Israel “Izzy” Reyes, a former police officer, former prosecutor and former judge, according to the ABA Journal. The agreement itself was established in 2025, The Center Square reported, and it pays the lawyer a contingency fee to bring asset-forfeiture lawsuits — cases in which the government can seize private property it believes was used in a crime or bought with ill-gotten gains, without first proving that the owner committed a crime.

Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz, whose office made the arrangement, is the first elected sheriff in Miami-Dade County since the 1960s, after Florida voters restored the elected office and she took over the former Miami-Dade Police Department in January 2025.

$45.2 millionallegedly seized in forfeiture cases handled by the firm
$2.6 billionfurther amount allegedly targeted for seizure
20–35%share of proceeds the firm allegedly keeps, plus 5% on appeal
$520 millionestimated fee the lawyer could gain if he wins, per Goldwater Institute

The constitutional challenge

The fee deal is also under attack in the Florida Court of Appeal, where the Goldwater Institute has filed a brief arguing that paying a private lawyer a share of forfeiture proceeds violates due process and is unconstitutional. “Asset forfeiture is an abusive and absurd practice that undermines respect for the law and transforms those who are supposed to be protectors into predators,” Goldwater Institute Vice President for Legal Affairs Timothy Sandefur said.

Source: The Center Square via Hometown Register — Brief challenges Miami-Dade's asset-forfeiture fee deal

Sandefur told The Center Square that in one case the lawyer brought a multimillion-dollar forfeiture case against businesses that sell cellphones on the argument that drug dealers use cellphones and therefore the businesses selling the phones are liable. He put the case at $45 million in bank accounts, with potentially another $2.6 billion subject to forfeiture, and estimated the lawyer in the agreement stands to gain about $520 million if he wins.

What is solid

  • The contingency-fee agreement between the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office and Reyes's firm was established in 2025 (The Center Square).
  • A lawsuit over the arrangement was filed in October by Miami mobile phone distributors and retailers (ABA Journal, citing the court papers and Miami Herald reporting).
  • The Goldwater Institute has filed a brief in the Florida Court of Appeal arguing the deal violates due process (The Center Square).

What is only claimed

  • The companies allege more than $45.2 million was seized and $2.6 billion more targeted; Sandefur told The Center Square the sheriff's department has yet to seize assets as a result of the agreement itself while the case is ongoing — the two accounts differ on what has actually been taken so far.
  • Whether a contingency fee for the government's own forfeiture lawyer is constitutional is exactly what the courts have not yet decided in this case.

Why the fee structure is the fight

The legal argument, as the Goldwater brief frames it, is about incentives: a lawyer who is paid only out of what he seizes has a financial reason to bring and expand forfeiture cases. Sandefur argued the arrangement is worse than paying an informant on contingency — a practice Florida courts have already held unconstitutional — because a paid witness can at least be cross-examined in front of a jury, while the prosecutor bringing the case cannot be put on the witness stand.

The brief also points to the patchwork elsewhere: some states, including Georgia and California, have made agreements like this illegal outright, the Center Square reported, while a federal court in Indiana in 2024 said a similar arrangement was permissible in forfeiture cases — a decision the Goldwater brief argues was wrongly decided. A widely known earlier case in Delaware County, Indiana, in the late 1990s and early 2000s ended with a prosecutor who was also collecting a share of forfeited property being suspended from practicing law by the state supreme court.

What happens next

Two tracks are now running at once: the phone companies' lawsuit over their frozen accounts and seized funds, filed in October, and the constitutional attack on the fee agreement itself in the Florida Court of Appeal. No court has yet ruled on whether the 20-to-35-percent arrangement can stand. For business owners in Miami-Dade — one of the most immigrant-heavy business communities in the United States, where small distributors and retailers routinely hold large sums in operating accounts — the outcome decides whether a sheriff's office can keep paying its forfeiture lawyer out of the property it takes, and whether money frozen before any criminal conviction can stay frozen while that fight plays out.