How to Get a Nebbia Order Removed in Pennsylvania

When you get arrested for a crime, you can seek bail. This lets you be released so you can fight the charges from outside. However, when the charges you are facing involve you allegedly receiving illegal funds, the government might want to be sure you aren’t paying your bail with ill-gotten gains.

A “Nebbia” order is an order to show that your bail funds are all legitimate before they can be applied to your bail payments. This is used rarely, and it can only be removed by the court after you provide the required evidence. This often allows us to use things like pay stubs and bank records to show legitimate funds.

Call Kenny, Burns & McGill’s Philadelphia criminal defense lawyers at (215) 774-5644 for help with your case.

What is a Nebbia Order?

A Nebbia order is a hold on your bail that requires you to prove the source of your funding before the court lets you pay bail.

When is it Used?

Nebbia orders are typically only used in cases where you are accused of long-term or high-dollar crimes. In these situations, the court might presume that all of the money you have came from those illegal enterprises.

Examples

This is common for cases of extensive

Drug dealing
Fraud
RICO/operating a criminal enterprise
Forgeries and counterfeiting
Theft

Usually, Nebbia orders are only for the most serious crimes.

Use Against Family

A Nebbia order might still need to be satisfied even if the funds are coming from someone else. For example, if your wife or mother wants to pay your bail, the court might want proof that her money didn’t come from your alleged criminal activity, either.

Can You Get a Nebbia Order Lifted?

A Nebbia order typically will not be lifted before you satisfy its requirements. In the initial hearing where bail is set, the court or the prosecutor will request the Nebbia order, and your lawyers get a chance to argue against its implementation.

We may be able to show the Nebbia order is unnecessary by informing the court about a legitimate job you have, and explaining that the income from that job would be enough – even without any additional assets or funds – to cover your bail.

If that argument fails, and the order is put in place, you then have to provide hard proof that the funds are legitimate before you can use them.

Satisfying a Nebbia Order

Our Delaware County, PA criminal defense lawyers can help you show that your funds are legal and satisfy the Nebbia order’s requirements in a few ways:

Proof of Income

If you can provide proof of legitimate income, such as W-2s or pay stubs, this can show that your money came from a legitimate source.

Proof of Asset Forfeiture

If you have already had all of your money taken away as part of civil asset forfeiture, then you might be able to argue that they already took all of the illegal money. If there is no illegal money left, then your bail funds cannot very well be from that money.

Bank Records

People don’t typically put illegal money in the bank. If you can show your accounts have traceable sources of money – e.g., income, investment dividends – or that they all come from your alleged crimes, then you can prove that money is clean.

Family and Friends’ Funds

Other people can post bail for you, but they also have to show their funds are legitimate. It might be easier for a family member, such as a sibling or parent who has no connection to alleged crime, to show that their funds are legitimately from their job if you have no proof of your own legitimate wages.

Using a Bail Bondsman with a Nebbia Order

Sometimes you can use a bail bond agent instead of paying out of pocket. For example, if your bail is set as cash bail at $100,000, you might not be able to afford that full amount. Instead, the bail bondsman will let you make a percentage downpayment or put up property as collateral and pay the full amount for you.

Collateral Must Be Legitimate, Too

Under a Nebbia order, you have to show that any money or assets put up as collateral are also legitimate. For example, if your house was bought entirely with funds from drug dealing, the court might not accept that.

This often means tracing the assets put up for bond and showing they are legitimate.

Bond Agent’s Investigations Might Be Enough

Bond agents do deep credit checks and look into your finances when you apply for bond. A court might accept the bail bondsman’s findings from their investigation as sufficient proof that the money was legitimate.

What if Bail is too High?

Bail cannot be set at an unreasonable level, or else it violates your constitutional rights. This means looking at your income and net worth when setting bail.

The court cannot fairly count your illegal assets when looking at bail amounts, then charge you a high bail you cannot afford with legitimate assets. We may be able to get bail reduced in these situations.

Can I Get ROR Bail with a Nebbia Order?

ROR bail refers to “release on your own recognizance.” This is essentially $0 bail, where the court trusts you to return to court. This is typically only granted if you are a low flight risk and do not pose a risk to the community.

If your charges are serious enough for a Nebbia order, they are probably too serious for ROR bail. Additionally, a Nebbia order is only put in place when there is a bail amount set, so it would not work if bail was set as ROR.

Nebbia Orders and Asset Forfeiture

Civil asset forfeiture allows the prosecution to make a case against money or property that was brought with illegal proceeds or used in the commission of a crime. They can then take this money away from a defendant or their family.

If the government is serious that they think your funds are all illegally obtained, you may be facing asset forfeiture as well as a Nebbia order. If they take away all of your illegal funds, it might be harder for them to then claim you still have further illegal funds for bail that they aren’t going after through asset forfeiture.

Our lawyers may be able to argue against a Nebbia order in the first place, based on these contradictory claims from the prosecution.