Do you feel safer now?
I don’t know Johnny Gaskins, the Raleigh criminal defense lawyer who faces as much as 35 years in prison for violating a federal law governing the way people handle their cash bank deposits. I’ve never met him, and my only tenuous connection to him is that a good friend of mine lives in Gaskins’ neighborhood.
All this is by way of saying I don’t have a dog in this fight. But reading this article in Sunday’s News & Observer about Gaskins sent a chill up my spine. The pertinent facts gleaned from the article are these:
(1) Gaskins specialized in defending murderers, lowlifes, drug dealers, etc. Naturally, that client roster didn’t endear him to cops and prosecutors.
(2) Many clients paid Gaskins in cash, and he let the cash pile up in a safe at his home.
(3) He declared the cash as income and paid taxes on it, as he was supposed to do.
(4) Gaskins had trust issues. When he finally decided to park his fat wad of cash in the bank, he divided it into relatively small amounts for deposit lest a criminally inclined teller figure out he was sitting on a hoard. (Yeah, that doesn’t make sense, but being irrational isn’t a crime — except, apparently, in federal court.)
(5) Under federal law, banks are required to report cash deposits of more than $10,000, in an effort to combat money laundering. As the N&O noted, “Purposely structuring cash deposits to cause a bank to evade reporting requirements is against the law.”
The article doesn’t indicate that Gaskins had a more nefarious intent, and that prosecutors nabbed him on a banking technicality only because that was the best case they could make (like putting Al Capone in prison for income tax evasion). This was the whole of their case: Gaskins earned his money legally, paid taxes on it, didn’t seek to launder it but was a little nutty about the way he handled it. Therefore he should go to prison.
I keep asking myself why a prosecutor would focus so relentlessly on the letter of the law and ignore its spirit. I keep coming back to (1) above. That’s what makes the chill run up my spine.
October 19th, 2009 at 8:11 am
Bless Gaskins - and all sharp defense attorneys.
What’s worse; acquittal of every guilty defendant on the docket or the conviction of one innocent person? The State gets their turn at the plate too. And they hold every advantage in court except burden of proof. If they can’t get a conviction, who’s fault is that?
I agree, Gaskins’ legal predicament smells a little like malicious prosecution. On the other hand, his money is insured by the FDIC (assuming they have any money left). What does he care if a crooked teller embezzles funds from his accounts? It’s just a number on his monthly statements anyway until he demands its withdrawal.
It seems far more likely that the guy was squirelling away his money in small piles to avoid the added scrutiny of transacting his bank business in chunks in excess of $10,000.
October 19th, 2009 at 9:10 am
Can’t say I always agree with you GD but I’m with you 100% on this one. I actually read this story several times because I felt certain there was some paragraph I glossed over which contained the meat of the case against this gent. Next I thought perhaps I read the byline wrong — do they mean Raleigh, NC… the one in the United States?
Dude took his own money (the legitimacy of the earnings was never in question) and put it in the bank. I realize one can make the argument that structuring the transactions the way he did is technically a crime, but when the authorities use technicalities to punish someone who isn’t even guilty of the crime the law was created to uncover, aren’t they simply proving the unfairness of the law and risking it’s undoing?
I’m no fan of attorneys (especially after receiving the latest bill from my own) but the fact that this guy is losing his livelihood and, potentially his freedom, for depositing some of his own cash is outrageous.
October 19th, 2009 at 10:34 am
I agree with you 100 percent! This was payback and nothing else.
These “derivative crimes” are supposed to have an UNDERLYING crime that triggers the charge for what we would call an ancillary crime.
I can guarantee you that had he put the money in the bank in deposits of over $10K, the feds would have tried to frame him with money laundering. The federal criminal system is out of control, period. It is evil.
October 19th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
just noticed that comment should have said “dateline” not byline. Of course that was after I realized I was reading my own comment. Still trying to figure out which is more pathetic…
October 19th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
NTI, fret not. The dateline/byline mistake is minor. You debate vigorously and fairly, so you’ve got much goodwill on deposit here at WAW. (I just hope the feds don’t notice that those deposits are made in many small increments.)
October 19th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Dog fighting is wrong, even if your dog isn’t fighting. I believe that was where you erred GD.
October 19th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
He must have read “Prosecution And Ethics In Contemporary America” by Mike Nifong.
October 20th, 2009 at 7:55 am
Arena,
Can you expound? I’m a little slow and I’m not sure I get your point. Are you suggesting there shouldn’t be criminal defense attorneys or anyone to defend the alleged bad guys? Or is it something to do with keeping cash at home?
October 20th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Don’t dive in. It’s not that deep. Just an otherwise gentle stab at humor on an otherwise sleepy day. Really, it’s not that important.
October 20th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
No problem but now you know where the handle came from.