Legal Question in Criminal Law in Michigan

Re: Stolen Car

An order of restitution in a criminal case is supposed to be for the "full amount of your loss". This full amount is supposed to be paid by the defendant "immediately". But, 99% of defendants don't, so the courts set up a payment plan where a certain amount is paid per month toward restitution, fines, costs, crime victim rights assessment fee, etc. By law, 50 cents of every dollar collected must go toward restitution, and the other 50 cents toward the rest of the monies owed. The court should then pay the restitution money out to you periodically, which might be monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, etc. Check with your court's probation department re: their procedure.

If the defendant is not paying in money each month, the court should treat that as a probation violation and issue a show cause order. Talk to your prosecutor's victim rights coordinator to see what is going on re: payments and disbursements.

Hopefully, your court ordered "income withholding" at sentencing, so the monthly payment is automatically deducted from the bad guy's paycheck.

The court is supposed to collect the full amount of restitution owed, but it may take months to do so, or even stretch out over several years of probation.

Even if the full amount is not collected by the court, the criminal case restitution order is the same as a civil judgment. So, unless the restitution order doesn't cover all of your losses, you do NOT have to sue the defendant, get a civil judgment and then try to collect on it yourself.

The criminal restitution order also does not expire until it is paid in full.

Also, you (as the victim) can pursue your own civil efforts to collect on the restitution order, even if the criminal court is still trying to collect money during probation. You may need to hire a collection agency or an attorney to look at your options (which might include getting an order for a 'sheriff's sale' where the defendant's property is seized and sold at auction to pay the judgment).

Good luck. I know you are frustrated. But, in the end, over time, you should get paid in full.