In 2021, federal agents from the FBI raided California Palms — Sebastian Rucci’s veteran addiction recovery center — and walked out with over $600,000 in seized funds. The state revoked the facility’s certification. By every visible measure, the episode looked like the end of another chapter in a troubled developer’s story.
What happened next is not what that story usually looks like.
Rucci sued the federal government. Not for a settlement. Not for reduced penalties. For the return of the money that was taken. He litigated through the federal courts, pursued the case through years of proceedings, and in 2024 — three years after the raid — the Department of Justice made a decision that federal agencies make very rarely: it voluntarily returned the full $600,000, with interest.
No criminal charges were ever filed. Not one.
What “Voluntarily Returned With Interest” Means
The Department of Justice does not return seized funds with interest because it is feeling generous. It returns them when it has determined, or been compelled to determine, that continuing to hold them is not legally sustainable. The government can keep seized funds while criminal proceedings are pending. When no criminal proceedings are filed — and when a civil forfeiture case is sufficiently contested — the legal basis for retaining the funds weakens.
The fact that the DOJ returned the funds voluntarily, without a court order, reflects a judgment by the government’s own attorneys that continuing to contest the return was not a winnable position. The interest payment reflects the additional legal obligation that accrues when funds are wrongfully held. The combination is a government’s acknowledgment — in the only way federal agencies typically make such acknowledgments — that the seizure should not have been sustained.
The Sixth Circuit Ruling
Alongside the funds return, Rucci won a significant appellate victory at the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals regarding his right to examine the sealed affidavits that had justified the original raid. Federal agencies routinely keep search warrant affidavits sealed, arguing that disclosure would compromise investigations or reveal sources and methods. Courts generally give the government substantial deference on these requests.
The Sixth Circuit ruled in Rucci’s favor — requiring disclosure of the affidavits that justified a raid whose factual basis the government ultimately declined to defend through criminal prosecution. This is a meaningful legal victory. Appellate courts do not often require the government to open sealed warrant materials, particularly in the absence of pending criminal proceedings. The ruling reflects a judgment that the government’s interest in secrecy was outweighed by the individual’s right to understand the legal basis for an action that took $600,000 from him.
Why This History Is Relevant to the IVDC
A developer who has faced FBI raids, filed federal lawsuits, and won — receiving his money back with interest and getting an appellate court to require government transparency — has demonstrated something specific: the capacity and willingness to pursue legal remedies against government overreach through the full arc of the legal process, including the appellate process, including when the government is the opponent.
This is precisely the capability that the IVDC fight requires. The opposition has used government authority — city litigation, state legislation, alleged utility manipulation, alleged pressure on will-serve agreements — as the primary mechanism for blocking a legally-approved project. Defeating that campaign requires a developer who can litigate against government actors, sustain the cost and time of federal proceedings, and maintain the resolve to continue when the easier path is to take a settlement and move on.
Rucci’s track record shows he can do this. The FBI experience, the Sixth Circuit victory, the ongoing federal civil rights lawsuit — these are not a biography of a criminal. They are a biography of someone who has consistently used the legal system to hold government actors accountable for overreach. In the context of what Imperial Valley needs from this project, that history is not a liability. It is a qualification.