On Tue, 24 Dec 1996, Brian A. LaMacchia wrote:

At 05:54 PM 12/24/96 -0800, jim bell wrote:

...

"Man wins $27,000. He will eventually be required to report and pay taxes on the amount, but not quite yet. Stupid I/R/S people alert him BEFORE he files his taxes. He reports the payment, as is ostensibly legally required. He paid the taxes owed. Period."

THEN you said, "we settled the matter." Huh? What, exactly, was there to "settle"?

Why, of course, the fact that the guy attempted to structure the transaction to evade the reporting requirements in the first place. 31 U.S.C. 5324(a). Structuring (or attempting to structure) a financial transaction to evade the reporting requirements is a violation of this subsection, and 31 U.S.C. 5322(a) says that a willful violation is a five-year felony. Oh, and willful violation while violating another U.S. law is a ten-year felony until 5322(b). I'd suspect the guy was looking at a 5322(b) charge (with "transmission of wagering information in interstate commerce" as the "other U.S. law" being violated), but IANAL and I don't know the case law.

EBD: Please correct me if I'm wrong. Oh, and did you go after the guy who wrote the three $9K checks for conspiracy or aiding-and-abetting?

--bal

Your answer looks pretty good to me (although I must admit I didn't pull the statute once I saw that you replied to Bell's post). Except that we didn't consider a 5322(b) charge for various reasons. The reason which we were unhappy with our IRS agents is that structuring is hard to sell to a jury in a vacuum. If you can explain the reason for the structuring by, for example, adding a tax charge, the structuring charge is much easier to understand as something that is "wrong" within our system of laws. In other words, he committed the crime but it would have been more difficult to prove BRD at trial than if the IRS hadn't messed up. The target, who is a lawyer, wanted to resolve the matter without a trial if possible to avoid risking incarceration and loss of his law license. Remember, Jim, he AGREED to the disposition. While represented by one of the best criminal defense lawyers in our jurisdiction (since deceased). Since that case, the Supreme Court has made it more difficult to succeed in such prosecutions by toughening the knowledge requirement. That would not have help the gambling attorney, because he had previously been involved in transactions where CTRs were filed and knew of the regs. EBD