The financial life of a company and the financial life of one of its owners are related, but they are not identical. Nevin Shetty’s July 31, 2026 appellate brief relies on that distinction in challenging forfeiture. His lawyers argue that treating money as received by HighTower does not automatically answer whether Shetty personally acquired it.
This is an alternative argument within the appeal. Counsel first dispute the idea that the funds became Shetty’s personal property. They then contend that even if the court regards HighTower as the recipient, corporate receipt requires further analysis before it can support the same amount of forfeiture against an individual owner.
The significance of the alternative argument
Printed pages 54 and 55 frame the company question directly. The brief describes HighTower as a separate business over which Shetty had, at most, partial control. It invokes decisions from other circuits in which money received by a company was not automatically attributed to an individual defendant for forfeiture purposes.
That approach gives the appeal a second route through the acquisition issue. Counsel do not rely exclusively on their position that Fabric retained the relevant property interest. They also ask what follows if the reviewing court locates receipt at HighTower instead. In that event, the appeal says the distinction between company and owner remains important.
The structure matters because alternative reasoning can address disagreement without conceding the entire case. The brief asks the court to examine both possible characterizations of the funds. Under either, counsel maintain that personal acquisition requires a finding that goes beyond the fact of ownership.
Ownership percentage and actual operations
The appeal describes Shetty as a minority owner and notes that HighTower’s chief executive, Adam Brazg, also had access to the account. The earlier district-court forfeiture opposition gives the defense’s more detailed account of ownership percentages and shared management. Those particulars support the argument that HighTower was not simply another name for Shetty.
Counsel combine the formal relationship with the practical one. Minority ownership addresses the allocation of equity. Shared access addresses operation of the account. The asserted absence of personal distributions addresses where proceeds went. Those facts do different work and cannot be reduced to a single label such as founder or officer.
The appeal’s argument is not that every minority shareholder is protected from forfeiture. A person’s actual receipt or control can still require scrutiny. Counsel contend that the particular combination described in this record does not justify attributing all corporate receipts to Shetty individually.
Why the cited company cases matter
The brief discusses McLaughlin and Rouhani as examples of courts examining the separation between a corporation’s receipts and its owner’s acquisition. In counsel’s reading, these cases demonstrate that a defendant’s role in obtaining money for a business does not eliminate the need to establish the relevant personal receipt.
The comparisons also address corporate formalities and distributions. The brief uses them to distinguish ordinary ownership or managerial involvement from a situation in which the company is effectively treated as the individual’s own financial instrument. That is the role of the alter-ego issue in the appeal’s analysis.
These authorities are presented as support from other circuits, and the brief acknowledges that the Ninth Circuit had not squarely resolved the particular separate-entity issue in the form counsel raise it. That acknowledgment narrows the claim. The appeal seeks an application of related principles rather than reporting an already identical Ninth Circuit ruling in Shetty’s favor.
Distinguishing the government’s authority
A footnote addresses United States v. Prasad. The appeal characterizes that case as a dispute over whether payments made after proceeds were received should reduce the forfeiture amount. Counsel argue that it therefore differs from Shetty’s challenge to attributing the company’s receipts to him at the outset.
That distinction concerns the stage of the calculation. Subtracting expenses from an amount already attributed to a defendant is different from deciding whether the amount should be attributed to him at all. The appeal asks the court to resolve the latter question before assuming the former supplies the answer.
The comparison remains the appellant’s legal argument. It does not establish that every company-associated transaction falls outside forfeiture or that a corporate form overrides actual acquisition. Its force depends on how the governing law applies to the record’s ownership, control and receipt facts.
Corporate precision as part of a fair review
The NACDL brief supporting Shetty at an earlier stage concerned the limits of the fraud charges. It did not decide the corporate-receipt issue. Its broader emphasis on applying defined legal requirements helps explain why the appeal insists on more exact categories when reviewing the financial consequence of the conviction.
The district court granted forfeiture, and the July brief asks the Ninth Circuit to vacate that order. Shetty’s November 2025 convictions and March 2026 sentence form the background to the request. The corporate-separateness argument concerns the financial remedy even if the convictions remain in place.
Readers following Nevin Shetty’s public materials can understand this issue without assuming that company ownership settles guilt or innocence. The question is more specific: what supports moving from a company’s receipt to an owner’s personal forfeiture liability? The appeal’s constructive contribution is to require an answer grounded in actual receipt, control and corporate relationships. That approach brings greater precision to a financial demand with substantial consequences.
