United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 21-2725 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. STEVEN MILLER, Defendant, APPEAL OF: LILIYA KRASILNIKOVA, Appellant. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 1:17-cr-00442-2 — Elaine E. Bucklo, Judge. ____________________

ARGUED APRIL 8, 2022 — DECIDED JULY 12, 2022 ____________________

Before WOOD, HAMILTON, and JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judges. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge. This appeal presents an unusu- ally tangled story about ownership of a family residence. The district court sorted out the mess as well as the record would allow. We affirm its decision finding that defendant Steven 2 No. 21-2725 Miller had a one-half ownership interest in the property and that it should be used to pay restitution for Miller’s crime. Miller and appellant Liliya Krasilnikova are married. In 2018, Miller pled guilty to one count of wire fraud. Part of his sentence included an order to pay approximately $1.1 million in restitution. Days after Miller received his sentence, Krasilnikova agreed to sell their family home to a third party. The United States then gave notice of a lien on the property, asserting that Miller had a one-half interest in the proceeds and that his share should be used to pay restitution. Krasilnikova argues that the government is entitled to nothing. She contends that she was the sole owner and that Miller had no interest in the property or the sale proceeds. The title to the property was indeed only in Krasilnikova’s name, and title is ordinarily king in determining ownership interests in property. As Judge Bucklo explained in careful de- tail, however, the evidence here shows that the property was the subject of not one but several highly irregular, indeed fraudulent, transactions preceding Miller’s conviction and the eventual sale of the home. The fraudulent transactions in- cluded the very transfer of title that Krasilnikova relies upon to assert that she was the sole owner. Since the paper title is not reliable, the district court properly considered the addi- tional evidence, and the court did not err by dividing the pro- ceeds equally between Miller and Krasilnikova based on their shared exercise of control over their family home. I. Factual and Procedural Background This appeal comes to us in the form of a civil garnishment order inside a criminal prosecution. See United States v. Kollintzas, 501 F.3d 796, 800 (7th Cir. 2007) (“[D]istrict courts No. 21-2725 3 may entertain civil garnishment and other collection proceed- ings as postjudgment remedies within an underlying criminal case….”). After Miller pled guilty to one count of wire fraud, he was sentenced to a year and a day in prison and two years of su- pervised release. He was also ordered to pay approximately $1.1 million in restitution to two financial institutions and a government agency. Upon entry of judgment, the order for payment of restitution became a lien in favor of the govern- ment on all of Miller’s property and rights to property. See 18 U.S.C. § 3613(c); Kollintzas, 501 F.3d at 802. Such a lien is per- fected against purchasers and other third parties when the government files a notice of the lien with an appropriate pub- lic office, such as the county clerk or recorder. See § 3613(d); 26 U.S.C. § 6323(f). Important to note: “Liens to pay restitu- tion debts are treated like tax liens … [and] are ‘effective against every interest