On Thu, 02 Jan 2003 08:32:13 GMT, HR-Defense@aol.com (Shy David) wrote:

>Yes, Minton appears to have something worth hiding (which Scientology
>Inc. discovered, and used to silence him). "Money laundering" doesn't
>appear to be the case. He appears to have used a few people to move
>money from one account into another account--- both of them his. To
>"launder" money, the original source must be tainted: illegally
>acquired. (That's the whole point in "laundering" money.)

The predicate offense in this case would be tax evasion. The factual question raised by this would be whether felony tax evasion occurred prior to the obfuscation of the financial transactions, and therefore the funds in question could be considered the "proceeds" of the felony tax evasion. Additionally, there would be the question of whether, if the tax evasion occurred using the obfuscation of the source of the funds as an instrumentality in committing the offense of tax evasion, whether the tax evasion would be considered to have been subsequent to the obfuscation of the financial transactions and therefore would not be able to be considered a predicate offense to establish the funds as the proceeds of criminal activity. There's also the fact that it isn't a predicate offense as such, although it is prohibited.

That would require a factual determination, that is to say, an investigation, which is what Ottmann calls for. Minton pleading the Fifth certainly gives rise to the belief that if he were to answer it would tend to incriminate him and the evidence already at hand suggests that Minton has committed at least felony tax evasion. Whether this additionally gives rise to a money laundering charge or charges is the sort of question a prosecutor could really sink his teeth into, if he felt like it, which he probably doesn't.

I would make a wild guess that it would be very difficult to impossible to convict on that without the source of the funds itself being tainted.

There's no particular reason to think that the funds are tainted. Indeed, if the source of the funds was the Nigerian transactions, those have been investigated in pretty thorough detail without uncovering any wrongdoing.

It is no wonder that Minton had retained the service of an expert in money laundering before embarking on his reckless course. It appears that, had Minton done the same thing now, it would be illegal as "bulk cash smuggling" under Title III of the heinous "USA Patriot Act."

As for our prosecutors, they're still left with tax evasion as an easier charge, should their hypothetical investigation not turn up any stronger potential predicate offense than the disfavored tax evasion.

However, this document from the US Department of the Treasury makes it pretty clear that the US Treasury at least considers bank transactions for the purposes of tax evasion to be money laundering under 18 U.S.C.

1956 and 1957.

http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/docs/money.pdf

15 The Money Laundering Control Act

The Money Laundering Control Act [FN2] establishes money laundering as a separate, independent, crime.

[FN2] Pub. L. 99-570, Title XIII (October 27, 1986), as amended, codified at 18 U.S.C. 1956 and 1957.

The statute generally makes it unlawful for a person to engage knowingly in a financial transaction with the proceeds of specified unlawful activity with either (a) the intent to promote the specified unlawful activity or to engage in conduct constituting income tax fraud, or (b) knowledge that the transaction is designed to disguise the nature of such proceeds or to avoid a transaction reporting requirement under state or federal law. The "specified activities"

cover most financially motivated federal crimes, ranging from narcotics trafficking, through various kinds of fraud and counterfeiting, to kidnapping.

The money laundering statute now extends to the proceeds of more than 170 separate offenses.

---

Note specifically the phrase "engage in conduct constituting income tax fraud." Despite this, tax evasion is not a listed predicate offense. This comes down to a technical issue of whether or not it's "money laundering"

to obfuscate these transactions in order to evade taxes. It appears that the term "money laundering" might not be appropriate. Perhaps "bulk cash smuggling" would be a better term. In either case, if Minton did in fact do it, it's illegal, whether or not it's "money laundering" or some other criminal offense.

-- Liberty is better served by presenting a clear target to one's opponents than by joining with them in an insincere and useless brotherliness.

-Benedetto Croce

From: ptsc <ptsc@nowhere.com>
Subject: Re: Federal Complaint II - Violations (c)
Organization: Busts Your Rips!
Message-ID: <sl981vk2r1gju20t2mcuj1v7ootqsilbpf@4ax.com>
Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2003 11:53:20 GMT

On Thu, 02 Jan 2003 11:17:15 GMT, ptsc <ptsc@nowhere.com> wrote:

>On Thu, 02 Jan 2003 08:32:13 GMT, HR-Defense@aol.com (Shy David) wrote:

>>Yes, Minton appears to have something worth hiding (which Scientology
>>Inc. discovered, and used to silence him). "Money laundering" doesn't
>>appear to be the case. He appears to have used a few people to move
>>money from one account into another account--- both of them his. To
>>"launder" money, the original source must be tainted: illegally
>>acquired. (That's the whole point in "laundering" money.)

>The predicate offense in this case would be tax evasion. The factual

Hold on a minute. As I pointed out later in this same article, the predicate offense would probably NOT be tax evasion, and quite possibly, the offense Minton is being accused of may NOT in fact be "money laundering" although it appears to be prohibited in a law generally relating to money laundering, depending on whether or not the money can be considered "proceeds" of any of the over 170 predicate offenses. There's also question of whether the money ever passed through any "all crimes" anti-money-laundering law jurisdictions and whether or not that would qualify it as dirty money whether or not it would do so under US law normally. There's also question of whether the "bulk money smuggling" provisions of the USA Patriot Act would illegalize it. In any case, the "money laundering"

language is tough to justify, and tax evasion probably would not be a predicate offense under US law.

Tax evasion is still illegal, though.

My conclusion from the previous article repeated here, in case you saw the first line (that should have not said that) and got distracted by the obvious error (or omission).

http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/docs/money.pdf

15 The Money Laundering Control Act

The Money Laundering Control Act [FN2] establishes money laundering as a separate, independent, crime.

[FN2] Pub. L. 99-570, Title XIII (October 27, 1986), as amended, codified at 18 U.S.C. 1956 and 1957.

The statute generally makes it unlawful for a person to engage knowingly in a financial transaction with the proceeds of specified unlawful activity with either (a) the intent to promote the specified unlawful activity or to engage in conduct constituting income tax fraud, or (b) knowledge that the transaction is designed to disguise the nature of such proceeds or to avoid a transaction reporting requirement under state or federal law. The "specified activities"

cover most financially motivated federal crimes, ranging from narcotics trafficking, through various kinds of fraud and counterfeiting, to kidnapping.

The money laundering statute now extends to the proceeds of more than 170 separate offenses.

---

Note specifically the phrase "engage in conduct constituting income tax fraud." This requiring that the money be the proceeds of more than 170 offenses. Despite this, tax evasion is not a listed predicate offense. This comes down to a technical issue of whether or not it's "money laundering"

to obfuscate these transactions in order to evade taxes. It appears that the term "money laundering" might not be appropriate. Perhaps "bulk cash smuggling" would be a better term, as used in the USA Patriot Act. In either case, if Minton did in fact do it, it's illegal, whether or not it's "money laundering" or some other offense such as pure tax evasion or (in the case of the very last check) a violation of the USA Patriot Act anti-cash smuggling provisions which were passed in the end of 2001.

As I pointed out earlier, no wonder Bob hired a money laundering expert. Possibly, as grim as this mess looks, Minton at least managed to avoid the pitfall of actual money laundering. It still remains a genuine clusterfuck for a variety of other reasons.

-- Liberty is better served by presenting a clear target to one's opponents than by joining with them in an insincere and useless brotherliness.

-Benedetto Croce