By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO, Calif.—Assistant. U.S. Attorney Mary Lundberg, an expert on the laws enabling the government to seize and forfeit from criminals the proceeds and instrumentalities of their crimes, is being detailed by the U.S. Justice Department to South Africa, where she will consult for a year with that government's National Prosecuting Authority on implementing a similar system there. 

The San Diego-based prosecutor will be accompanied for six months by her husband, former state Assemblyman Howard Wayne, who is taking a leave of absence from his position as a deputy state attorney general also based in San Diego.. The couple now is making the rounds of friends and organizations to say their good-byes before their Feb. 27 departure date.  Among the bon voyage parties for Lundberg and Wayne is one planned by the 52-year-old Democratic Professional Club from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 22, at El Fandango Restaurant in Old Town San Diego State Park.

Having arranged for a house-sitter, the couple now is deciding what household goods to ship to the South African administrative capital of Pretoria, where Lundberg will be based. In that his wife will be working, while he will be vacationing, Wayne said he plans on packing plenty of books, particularly some of the  literary classics that he never seemed to get around to reading when he was younger, books like Leo Tolstoi's War and Peace.  He said he also will continue work on a textbook for a course on legislative advocacy for non-profit corporations that he, as a former legislator, will teach at the University of San Diego after his return   A board member of the local American Jewish Committee, Wayne said he also hopes to stay in touch by email with organizers of that group's Jewish-Latino Dialogue.


Mary Lundberg and her husband, Howard Wayne.

Lundberg will be the busier spouse in South Africa, as she will divide her time among prosecutorial offices in Pretoria, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Durban—with Wayne hoping to accompany her to most of these important South African cities. While her husband sight-sees, Lundberg expects to "assist in developing training programs, work with other experts, and mentor the South African advocates who have  less experience in asset forfeiture."

The South African assets seizure program not only draws from the one in the United States, but also from one in Great Britain, Lundberg noted during a dinner interview Sunday, Feb. 12.  She said rather than being a duplicate of either program, the South African program attempts  to resolve some of the procedural and constitutional problems still encountered in the United States, such as disagreements over when assets seizures become violations of private property rights.

Before enrolling at the UC Davis law school in 1982, Lundberg had served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the African nation of Sierra Leone and later as head of a Peace Corps recruitment office in Los Angeles.  After joining the U.S. Attorney's office in San Diego, she began concentrating on assets seizure cases, which frequently involve drug traffickers  but which occasionally  take her to far-from-ordinary realms.

For example, she currently is  involved in a case involving the seizure of an American-flagged ship which was carrying 64,000 pounds of shark fins—favorite soup ingredients in parts of Asia.  The United States, concerned about the wanton slaughter of sharks, had enacted the Shark Finning Prohibition Act requiring fishermen who kill sharks to utilize the entire carcass, not just the fins.  Lundberg said on the open market 64,000 pounds of shark fins could fetch as much as $1 million.  They may represent as many as 20,000 killed sharks in a practice which, if left unchecked, could adversely affect ocean ecology, according to Lundberg.

She said the South African government  wrestles with similar problems involving such species as the tooth-fish and the abalone.