OHIO COUNTY, W.Va. --

Nearly 2 1/2 years after an Ohio County tavern was seized by U.S. marshals, federal officials are hoping to soon sell the property.

The Roadworthy Restaurant and Tavern was seized by the marshals after they found out the owner, Bernie Metz, was embezzling from the Centre Valley Credit Union to build up the property.

Metz, who was CEO of the credit union, pleaded guilty to embezzlement earlier this year and is in jail. Now that the criminal case against her is over, the U.S. attorney's office in Wheeling wants to sell the property.

"The District Court ordered that the restaurant and the real estate around it be forfeited," said William Ihlenfeld II, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of West Virginia.

Ihlenfeld said a sale could happen sometime in 2012, but there are several steps to get there. First, the property title had to be cleared with the county, and then it was turned back over to the U.S. marshals.

"The Marshals Service -- the headquarters in Washington, D.C., -- holds the file, and it is up in the headquarters in Washington to clear the sale. And once they are ready to sell the property, it can be sold online through auction or be listed with a local real estate agent," Ihlenfeld said. "There are a lot of pieces of real estate sitting on a file on a desk in Washington waiting to be moved ahead."

With regard to a possible sale price, he said the property was appraised, but officials didn't look at it from the perspective of how much money was put into it; rather they looked at how much someone in this market can pay for it.

"(The Roadworthy) had more money put into it than we could ever expect to get out of it," he said, adding that officials hope to get as much money they can out of the property.

Ihlenfeld said the court ordered Metz to pay $5 million in restitution. That money will be dispersed to the victims in the case from the credit union she embezzled from.