Proposals to Reform the Federal Money Laundering Statutes
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Instead, the promotion prong, with its twenty-year statutory maximum and its severe
sentencing guidelines, is an unnecessary addition to a federal prosecutor ’ s arsenal — an arsenal that is
already filled with a panoply of statutes prohibiting the underlying crimes themselves. There is no
social harm (in addition to the harm of the underlying crime itself) that warrants a separate
twenty-year statute for participating in a financial transaction that is intended to promote the alleged
criminal activity that itself is already prohibited and subject to punishment.
Aside from not serving any legitimate purpose, the promotion prong has fostered confusion,
inconsistency and unfairness. Far removed from true “ laundering, ” so-called promotion money
laundering was intended to prevent the use of funds to expand a criminal enterprise. 10 However,
prosecutors have applied the offense to conduct outside this narrow purpose, and the courts have
permitted this unwarranted expansion.
Two areas, which have generated conflicting opinions, illustrate how the promotion prong has
been stretched far beyond its thin rationale:
In some circuits, one can be convicted of promotion money laundering where past, as opposed to future conduct, was involved. 11 Other circuits have recognized that one
10 Jimmy Gurule, The Money Laundering Control Act of 1986: Creating a New Federal Offense or Merely Affording Federal Prosecutors an Alternative Means of Punishing Specified Unlawful Activity?, 32 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 823, 844 (1995).
11 See United States v. Montoya, 945 F.2d 1069 (9 th Cir. 1991) (upholding defendant ’ s conviction for promotion money laundering where he deposited check received as a bribe in bank
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