Oakland- Federal prosecutors argue the government should keep $61,000 in cash seized from an Oakland woman who allegedly worked as a high-priced call girl to repay student loans from her time at Stanford Law School. Court documents detail how agents sifted through trash, conducted surveillance, interviewed clients and a colleague, pored over tax returns and surfed the Internet to build a case for keeping money seized from Cristina Schultz, 31 — who they say used the name “Brazil” and charged $1,300 for two hours.

But all jokes about the declining value of a Stanford law degree aside, Schultz hasn’t been charged with a federal crime.

Federal civil asset forfeiture laws let the government seek to keep property — in this case, money — representing the proceeds of a federal crime even if the property’s owner hasn’t been convicted or even charged with the alleged crime.

Here, the government is claiming the money both is property involved in money-laundering transactions as well as the proceeds of interstate prostitution.

Civil libertarians long have complained that while criminal proceedings put the burden of proof upon prosecutors to prove someone’s guilt, the forfeiture laws essentially put that burden upon the property’s owner to prove he or she is innocent.

Robyn Few, director of the Sex Workers Outreach Project which is backing a Berkeley ballot measure to decriminalize prostitution, said it’s a form of blackmail.

“They think we’re going to pay the federal government to be quiet, we’re going to give up everything we’ve got. … It’s extortion, that’s the bottom line,” she said. “It’s, ‘Let’s extort the whores because they’re so ashamed of who they are that they’ll be too afraid to stand up for themselves.'”

Efforts to reach Schultz by phone, by e-mail and in person were unsuccessful. Special Agent Mark Lessler, spokesman for the IRS Criminal Investigation Division office in Oakland and Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie Hinds, who’s trying the forfeiture case against Schultz, declined comment.

Luke Macaulay, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in San Francisco, said it’s not uncommon to seek asset forfeiture without any criminal charges. A Justice Department Web site says the asset forfeiture program’s purpose is “to disrupt or dismantle criminal organizations that would continue to function if we only convicted and incarcerated specific individuals.”

Schultz’s Web site remained active this week, registered in her name to her former address in Palo Alto; she moved to an apartment overlooking Oakland’s Lake Merritt in September 2002, but a security guard at the building Friday said Schultz no longer lives there.

The Web site, depicting her in various lingerie-clad poses, describes her as a “Portuguese-speaking entertainer and physical model.

“The quintessential Gemini, I am an unusual mix of well-educated good-girl and erotic-Bachian-sensualist, with some down-to-earth sweetness thrown in,” it says. “I am sure you will never forget any time you spend with me and I look forward to meeting you soon.”

Her home page’s fine print says “Escort services advertised on this website are for companionship and dating only.”

But clients posting reviews of Brazil’s services at another Web site gave her rave — and sometimes, explicit — reviews as recently as February 2004, a month after Internal Revenue Service agents seized evidence and $61,171 from Schultz’s apartment, her storage locker and her safe deposit box.

The government’s forfeiture complaint filed in July says Schultz operated an interstate prostitution business since at least August 2001 — three months after earning her degree at Stanford Law School — by charging up to $1,300 for two hours, $5,000 for overnight and $15,000 for three days to serve clients in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., New York City, Chicago and Seattle.

The complaint says investigators in September 2002 searched trash put out from Schultz’s Palo Alto apartment, recovering items such as a law book containing $2,400 in $100 bills; bills and invoices from Washington, D.C., hotels; business cards in the name of “Brazil;” condoms; invoices for large cash purchases; tax records; an admission card for the July 2001 California Bar Exam; and a promotional postcard from a Southern California woman.

That woman, when arrested for solicitation in January 2003 in Orange County, told officers her friend Brazil had gotten her started in prostitution; she also told officers they’d worked together as prostitutes.

The complaint notes Schultz’s tax returns reported only $28,717 in income from 1997 through 2002, but investigators found she deposited more than $45,000 cash to an account she’d opened at a Washington, D.C., Bank of America branch in 2002. Those deposits slacked off after she opened an Oakland safe deposit box from which agents seized cash in January.

“My investigation indicates that there is a large discrepancy between the income that Schultz has reported to the IRS and her expenditures and the lifestyle those expenditures have allowed Schultz to become accustomed to,” reads a January affidavit filed by IRS-CI Special Agent Anthony Ghio.

“Based on my training and experience, generally people whose adjusted gross income is consistently less than $13,500 a year are not able to put themselves through Stanford Law School, lease a $70,000 Mercedes-Benz for $1,486 a month, live alone in a $1,800-a-month apartment, pay off almost $300,000 in loans, compile savings over $10,000, build a cash hoard of $40,000, throw away $2,400 in cash and buy postal money orders totaling $13,500 all at one time.”

Schultz’s April 2003 posting to an escort-reviews Web site indicates her work wasn’t a secret from those who know her. “When I entered the business, I decided to use my face and real stats in my ad,” she wrote. “In a month EVERY PERSON in my law school and my parents had discovered my latest career change.”

Another posting made the same month to the same site said that when she finished her law degree, she “owed over 300 thousand in loans and hated the prospect of being a lawyer for the next twenty yrs.”(sic)

After launching her career as an escort, she wrote, “I am 100% more confident, I have paid off all of my loans, and I have tried to send a positive message to SF escorts re: assumptions about the nature and social status of women in the business. … This kind of travel and exposure to countless partners and situations has made me a stronger woman, a better businesswoman, and a more sensitive lover.”

A case management conference in the government’s effort to win forfeiture of Schultz’s money is scheduled for Oct. 15 before U.S. District Judge Susan Illston of San Francisco.