⚖ Oral Arguments, with Context

A counterfeit-goods prosecution becomes a dispute over who pays the brands' investigation bills. In twenty twenty-three, officers searched a Manhattan storage facility used to distribute knockoff luxury goods. Sow pleaded guilty to trafficking counterfeits and received two years in prison. The district court also ordered her to reimburse luxury brands about one hundred eleven thousand dollars. Those were bills from a private firm that helped authenticate and value seized goods and took part in the prosecution, including a sentencing hearing. They were not the retail price of the genuine products. The key law is the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act. For this kind of case, it requires an identifiable victim with financial loss directly and proximately caused by the crime. Pecuniary means financial; proximate cause limits how far responsibility for a loss extends. A separate provision, Section thirty-six sixty-three A, b, four, covers certain necessary expenses of participating in a government investigation or criminal prosecution, not every private investigation bill. Sow says the brands have not proved financial harm apart from those bills, or a sufficiently direct and foreseeable link between her conduct and the charges. The government says the counterfeits damaged valuable trademarks and that these investigation costs were a foreseeable consequence. You will also hear about a Fatico hearing: a hearing to resolve disputed facts used in sentencing. Justine Harris will seek to overturn the restitution order for Sow. Assistant United States Attorney Henry Ross will defend it for the government. Other sentencing challenges remain in the appeal, but counsel will focus this argument on restitution.

United States of America v. Sow (No. 25-2621) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, argued October 15, 2026.