A 9-year-old victim of an attempted sexual assault was awarded $129,000 in confiscated funds -- the largest amount ever awarded to a victim in the history of Denver's property confiscation program, the district attorney said Wednesday.

The money came from the sale of a home once owned by Alfred Kaufman, known in his neighborhood as the "cat man" because children were lured into his house to play with his cats.

Kaufman was convicted of attempted sexual assault on a child in October 2003 and sentenced to six years in prison in January 2004.

In April 2004 his house was declared a public nuisance and it was sold at public auction, netting just more than $129,000 in proceeds. The proceeds will be placed in a trust fund for the victim.

"You can never put her back in the condition she was in before this happened, physically and emotionally, but what this does do is set up a trust fund for her that will hopefully help her through the things she has had to go through," said District Attorney Mitch Morrissey

Nuisance abatement and asset forfeiture programs are often used for drug offenses and other vice-related crimes, which are not victimless but typically lack an identifiable victim, Morrissey said. In the cases involving drug dealers, whose home or car is confiscated because it was purchased with drug money, the proceeds go to city programs.

These laws can also be used for felony-level crimes with identifiable victims. The Denver District Attorney's office has won forfeiture awards in a variety of cases, ranging from a seriously injured pedestrian struck by a hit-and-run driver, to an elderly victim of a fraudulent roofing scheme (in those cases proceeds from seized vehicles were distributed).

Large awards to victims are uncommon simply because criminals rarely use valuable property in the course of crimes with identifiable victims, Morrissey said.

One added benefit of property confiscation in this case is that it removed an extremely negative element from this neighborhood, Morrissey said. Without intervention through the nuisance abatement process Kaufman would have had an opportunity to keep the house and move back into it when he got out of prison.

The affidavit filed in support of the forfeiture case recounts Kauffman's 50-year pattern of arrests for similar incidents. However, he was only convicted for this last offense (although one of the previous victims was permitted to testify at the criminal trial in this case).

According to the rules of the property confiscation program, anyone who wants to buy seized property must undergo a background check before a sale of seized property is final to ensure that a nuisance owner is not replaced with another nuisance owner.

In this case, Kaufman's house was bought by Daniel H. Hoffman, a local real estate broker who remodeled the home, located in 3800 block of Yates Street.

Additional Details

Information about the renovated home can be found at 3681Yates.com