Re: Legality of requiring credit cards?

[Brian Davis <bdavis@thepoint.net>]

On Tue, 24 Dec 1996, jim bell wrote:

> At 12:12 AM 12/25/96 -0500, Brian A. LaMacchia wrote:
> >At 07:17 PM 12/24/96 -0800, jim bell wrote:
> >>At 09:39 PM 12/24/96 -0500, Brian A. LaMacchia wrote:
> >>>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). 
> >>
> >>Who says?  He eventually reported it within the legally-defined time.  The 
> >>evidence of intent to COMPLY with the law is far stronger than the evidence 
> >>of the opposite.  
> >
> >Bzzt, wrong answer, thanks for playing.  "Reporting" here doesn't mean
> >"report the income to the IRS on your tax return."  It refers to the report
> >the bank is required to file by law on every transaction in excess of
> >$10,000.
> 
> 
> Bzzt, wrong answer!  By definition, if the report was filed as a consequence
  of the transaction, then the transaction was reported IN FACT and the 
 
The transactions were reported as suspicious transactions. There could 
have been a reasonable explanation for them, but there wasn't.  When 
interviewed by the offending IRS agents, the target's story was 
ludicrous.  One part consisted of alleging that the first bank didn't 
have enough $100 bills to cash all three checks.  Whoooooops.  The bank 
keeps vault records, which I subpoenaed for the day in question. Guess 
what they showed. 

> person didn't evade it!   (whether he wanted to evade it is, of course, 
> pure speculation on your part.  It is, obviously, questionable whether 
> the government can make a person's mere _desires_ criminal.) > 
> Let's suppose, hypothetically, that there is a rule which states "If 
>  anybody comes in and does three separate $9,000 transactions, they get 
>  reported."  In that case, anybody who does those transactions is already 
>  aware that doing them does NOT "evade the reporting requirements." > 
> Okay, maybe no such explicit rule exists.  However, can you prove that 
> anyone really believes that he is "evading reporting requirements"?  
 
No, but he wasn't going to be charged with evading reporting 
requirements, but rather with structuring a financial transaction *in an 
attempt* to avoid reporting requirements. 

>  Having read of this incident, it is quite obvious that the government 
>  doesn't obey its own rules and doesn't limit itself to logic and 
>  reasonable positions. It is also obvious that banks can't be trusted to 
>  follow reliable rules.   Once aware of this, how can you show that a 
>  person really thought he was getting away with anything?  (which is, 
>  after all, an essential element of the crime of "structuring", I suppose.)
> 
> Gotcha!  Catch-22 situation.  
> 
Hardly.  Juries are permitted to draw reasonable inferences from the 
facts before them -- the instructions about how the checks were to be 
cut, the three bank routine (along with what he said to the tellers at 
the branch that remember the transaction), and what he told the IRS when 
they interview him.  In addition to being stupid by going to branches of 
the same bank on the same day, he was stupid (and arrogant) by not 
exercising his right to keep his mouth shut when the IRS knocked at his 
door ... and then by lying to them.

EBD

> 
> 
> 
> Jim Bell
> jimbell@pacifier.com
>