Background
Top Dollar Pawn, LLC and four individuals were indicted on charges of violating the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act (COCCA), theft, and money laundering. The prosecution alleged that the individual defendants knowingly purchased stolen items, resold them through Top Dollar’s stores and online, and used laundered proceeds to operate the business and acquire additional stolen property. Top Dollar pleaded guilty to the COCCA count in exchange for dismissal of remaining charges.
At sentencing, the district court imposed a $25,000 fine and held a restitution hearing after Top Dollar objected to the prosecution’s request for $37,152 in restitution to the Colorado Springs Police Department. The Department’s evidence manager testified that the volume of stolen goods seized from Top Dollar was so large that the Department had to purchase four storage containers and temporarily rent four additional containers to hold the evidence—a necessity that had never arisen in her 21 years of employment. The total cost of the purchased containers plus rental fees was $37,152, whereas renting all containers would have cost approximately $95,000.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals affirmed the restitution award, holding that the Department’s storage costs were recoverable under Colorado’s restitution statute as “extraordinary direct public investigative costs” under § 18-1.3-602(3)(b). The court established a significant principle: while storing evidence is an ordinary police function, the amount of costs incurred for that ordinary function can be extraordinary if it falls outside the normal and customary practice. The evidence manager’s testimony that she had never in 21 years been required to acquire containers for a single case supported a finding that these costs were extraordinary—beyond what is usual, regular, common, or customary for the Department.
The court rejected Top Dollar’s argument that the restitution statute’s specific reference to storage costs for controlled substance evidence (in § 18-1.3-602(3)(c)(I)(B)) excluded recovery for storing other types of evidence. Applying principles of statutory construction and the legislature’s mandate that restitution be “liberally construed,” the court found the enumerated examples illustrative, not exhaustive. The court also established that in assessing extraordinary investigative costs, courts must apply a two-part analysis: examining whether the costs are “more than ordinary” compared to the agency’s normal practice, and confirming that the costs are reasonable and proximately caused by the defendant’s criminal conduct.
Key Takeaways
- Law enforcement agencies can recover restitution for the extraordinary amount of ordinary investigative costs—not just costs for extraordinary types of investigative activities.
- The inquiry into extraordinariness focuses on whether costs fall outside the natural and normal pattern of a police department’s practice, not solely on the type of investigative activity.
- Restitution statutes using the word “includes” enumerate illustrative, not exhaustive, categories of recoverable losses; courts should apply expansive interpretation consistent with legislative intent to compensate crime victims.
- Courts must consider reasonableness and proximate causation when awarding restitution, and the prosecution bears the burden of proving these elements by a preponderance of evidence.
Why It Matters
This decision expands potential restitution liability for criminal defendants by clarifying that law enforcement can recover not merely for specialized investigative techniques, but for the real and substantial costs of handling the consequences of large-scale crimes. For stolen goods cases and other crimes generating massive evidence volumes, defendants should anticipate restitution claims extending beyond direct victim losses to law enforcement infrastructure costs. However, the decision also leaves unresolved questions: the court acknowledged but declined to address Top Dollar’s argument that the absence of a clear analytical framework for determining when ordinary storage costs become extraordinary creates uncertainty and potentially incentivizes law enforcement overspending.
The decision clarifies Colorado’s pro-restitution statutory scheme and reflects the legislature’s policy favoring broad recovery for victims and costs directly caused by criminal conduct. For prosecutors, it validates claims for evidence storage and similar operational costs; for defense counsel, it signals that detailed factual challenges to extraordinariness findings and alternative cost-management strategies may be necessary in future cases involving large evidentiary seizures.