Suburban couple wants Will County prosecutors investigated for seizing their Ford Broncos, retirement savings

On a frigid morning in February 2023, officers smashed through the door of a sprawling Will County home, tossing flash-bang grenades as they stormed inside.

Their targets were Jeff Regnier and Greta Keranen, a couple accused of pocketing $275,000 through federal COVID-19 relief programs. Officers also raided the home of Regnier’s father — a retired Chicago cop — though he never was charged with any crime.

The criminal case against Regnier and Keranen is still in court. But, in a dramatic twist, the couple has beaten a separate attempt by Will County prosecutors to seize millions of dollars in investment accounts and six vehicles under Illinois' civil asset forfeiture laws.

Two of those vehicles — late-model Ford Broncos — prompted a blistering rebuke to prosecutors from a Will County judge who ordered the SUVs returned in January.

“The money-laundering statute is not a catchall for all things that the state cannot find in a legitimate way to seize,” Judge Brian Barrett wrote.

Barrett said he was “particularly disturbed with the special authoritarianism” displayed by the government.

Will County prosecutors are appealing.

The Regnier-Keranen saga spotlights the hotly debated civil asset forfeiture system, which allows police and prosecutors to seize property they believe is tied to crime — even if the owner is never convicted of any crime.

Civil rights advocates say the system flips the presumption of innocence on its head.

Not so, according to the Will County state's attorney's office, which says its prosecutors use "all legally available channels to fight crime and serve the residents of Will County,” noting that the Illinois General Assembly has deemed forfeiture “an important tool" and made reforms to the system in 2018.

Gun shop under scrutiny

The couple's legal fight stems from the gun store Regnier owned. He opened Kee Firearms & Training in New Lenox in 2020 as the pandemic swept the country. Village officials initially resisted the business, but the federally licensed gun dealer pressed ahead.

At its peak, Regnier said, the shop employed about 60 people.

Gun sales generated so much cash that Regnier hired a Brink’s armored truck to haul deposits to the bank.

Those deposits triggered alarms. The bank flagged the transactions to federal authorities as potentially suspicious. The Secret Service investigated but never filed federal charges. Frank Andreano, the couple's lawyer, said a federal audit of the store found no wrongdoing.

But, in February 2023, Will County prosecutors charged the couple with fraud tied to pandemic relief programs, including the Paycheck Protection Program created to help businesses survive COVID-19 restrictions.

Prosecutors accused the couple of falsifying loan applications with inflated revenue figures for the gun shop and a construction company owned by Keranen.

A month later, prosecutors launched a parallel civil forfeiture case seeking millions of dollars from the couple’s Fidelity retirement accounts and four vehicles — an Audi sedan, a Ford F-250 pickup and two Ford Broncos.

A second clash over Broncos

The dispute escalated in April 2023, when Keranen returned to a dealership where she previously financed vehicles and took out a loan to buy two more Ford Broncos to replace the ones seized.

Prosecutors responded by filing another criminal case, accusing the couple of fraud and saying Keranen inflated the revenue of her construction company on the loan application.

Authorities also filed a second forfeiture case to seize the newly purchased Broncos. But those efforts collapsed.

Will County judges acquitted the couple of the criminal charges tied to the April 2023 vehicle purchase and dismissed the forfeiture lawsuits seeking their retirement accounts and six vehicles.

But prosecutors are appealing Barrett’s order returning the Broncos bought in April 2023.

In an appeal of the civil ruling, the state’s attorney’s office argues that the judge ignored evidence, including bank records showing Keranen claimed $400,000 in monthly gross profits on the loan application. Under the law, prosecutors can't appeal the acquittal in the criminal case.

Regnier said the legal battle prompted him to close his gun store and transfer his firearms inventory to his sister in Georgia, a sheriff’s deputy who is also a federally licensed firearms dealer.

“We still owe the IRS money,” Regnier said. “Mortgages. Attorneys. Workers. It’s been tough.”

“They have made life very difficult for us,” Keranen said.

The couple eventually recovered $4.4 million from frozen investment accounts but say Will County still owes them about $2 million in lost investment gains.

More legal fights ahead

The original criminal case tied to the pandemic loans is now on hold as a judge considers a request from the couple to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Will County’s forfeiture unit and federal agents.

In a court filing, the couple's lawyer argues that the alleged abuses of the forfeiture system in the case were “neither isolated nor an aberration in Will County.”

Andreano said forfeiture laws allow government agencies to build “slush funds” with little oversight.

He also said prosecutors had a financial incentive in the couple's case: Any restitution ordered in the criminal case would go to the federal Small Business Administration, not to Will County.

“So they filed a forfeiture case to grab money for the county,” he said.

Andreano is challenging Illinois forfeiture laws in another case, this one involving an 85-year-old woman whose 2014 Mazda CX-5 was seized by New Lenox police after her daughter was stopped for an expired registration sticker.

Regnier, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in a Republican primary in 2022, said the forfeiture system gives prosecutors enormous leverage.

“They hold you under water and say, ‘Let’s make a deal,’ ” he said.

Keranen said she witnessed the human toll of the system while in court.

“We saw people coming into the forfeiture court crying,” she said. “I think it needs reform. I’m not sure it needs to be abolished. But they shouldn’t be able to take your stuff without proving a crime.”