The defense attorneys also argued that the definition of money laundering in Texas involves the transfer of criminal proceeds. Because the money in this case was not illegal to begin with, they argued, money laundering never occurred.
But the judge rejected that argument, too, saying the money became suspect when "it began to be held with the prohibited intent."
Apparently the judge has decided to write new law and to re-define money laundering to be what he says it is, not what the plain text of the Texas statute says.
Texas Judge Lets Stand 2 of 3 Charges Against DeLay
Nice headline - no bias there, nosireebob!
This new judge looks to be VERY partisan and crooked.
The judge has already made up his mind to rewrite the law.
It is clear that this indictment is an example of the the current servitude of the court system to the ends of political power satyrs...in this instance Ronnie Earle and his Democratic groupie cadre.
This fanatical Grand Inquisitor has no case, it just seems that the judge does not have the balls to rule against the NYTimes left - either that or he is just a democratic crony. Almost no one thinks what Delay did was illegal (among experts) and was a common practice. Yet this judge has chosen to amend the law to what he "wished" it had said...mumbo jumbo about "prohibited intent".
After all, Texas law is plain and clear: money laundering is the act of taking the proceeds of one or more criminal activities and making them untraceable. Typical 'money laundering' includes 'cleaning' the proceeds from drug sales, illegal gambling, bunko scams, etc. by making them financially invisible through off shore accounts, legal gambling operations, etc.. In this light, the speciousness of Earles charges should be self-evident - even to a Democratic judge:
a) During the time in question, no funds (coinage, currency, etc.) eligible (under the law) for laundering was transferred between named parties. All transactions were openly transferred by checks, excluded by law (at the time) as “funds" that are used in money laundering. The judge can call them "funds", but it is clear that this is an ex post facto reinterpitation.
b) Proceeds (dictionary def: "the amount of money derived from a commercial or fundraising venture; the yield") were legally solicited and openly transferred between parties prior to any alleged crime, not (as Texas law stipulates in the meaning of money laundering) derived as a yield from a "criminal" activity.
c) In any case, a predicate criminal act is required and then any resulting proceed laundering consists of two, separate, crimes and transactions. Texas and Federal courts have held they cannot occur in the same transaction. For example, when the courts have ruled on bank fraud and money laundering, seperate acts are required for both charges: the fraud that obtains the funds AND then (following it) a separate transaction that is required that to show an attempt to "launder" the money.
d) Texas election code replaced all related Penal Code in 1975, setting the civil and criminal limits to violations of election law (e.g. the election code stipulates there can be no corporate contributions to canidates beyond administrative expenses and it was defined as a third degree felony). They did not intend to "layer" that code with identical and the more severe Penal code of money laundering (1st degree felony) otherwise it would make election code limits irrelevant.
What the judge is saying is that money laundering is the solicitation of corporate money with the intent to use it in a prohibited activity by openly transfering it between partys...
That may be a lot of things, but it is not money laundering. Any more than collecting money from investors with the intent to use it for illegal purposes is "money laundering"...it may be fraud, or conspiracy to commit a crime (violating the election code), but it is NOT money laundering.
This is the "criminalization" of politics and is, like the RICO statutes, clearly an abuse of the law.
In the end Earle will lose, but he will have done his dirty job of destroying the leadership of the house Republicans on a phony charge cooked up in his office.
Such is the state of our "justice" system..
DeLay will make pulp of this prosecutor. Wait and watch the game.
Seems like Hillary's campaign finance problems are worse than this.
When will she be indicted?
And .. even when the transactions (which were legal) were taking place, there was no Texas law against it. Now there is, but at the time the incident occurred, there was no law prohibiting the act; and the democrats were doing the same thing .. so when are they going to be held up for money-laundering too!!
Actually, it applies only to the Republicans (its their rules). But, since the Republicans control the House, perhaps they should pass a rule that it applies to all members of the House. It would be fun to see how many Democrats would have to step down.
It's legal for A to give money to B, and B to give money to C, but not legal for A to give money to C. Since A to B to C occurred then there can be no crime at all. Obviously the law was followed. This is analogous to tax evasion versus tax avoidance. The intent of both is to avoid paying taxes. One is a crime the other is not. In this case the intent is to get money to candidates. One way is legal the other is not. So?
Add'l Article - TAB
# # #
DeLAY FAILS TO GET CASE TOSSED OUT
With charges of money laundering upheld, hopes for a rapid resolution come up short
By R.G. RATCLIFFE, Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
Dec. 6, 2005, 12:44AM
AUSTIN - U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay suffered a blow to his efforts to regain his House leadership position when a judge ruled Monday that he should stand trial on felony money laundering charges in an election finance case. Senior District Judge Pat Priest threw out charges accusing DeLay and two associates of conspiring to violate the state election code, but he upheld charges of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
A spokesman for DeLay called the split ruling a victory, but the congressman had hoped to gain a quick resolution to the entire case by challenging the indictments against him. The Sugar Land Republican had to relinquish his post as House majority leader when he was first indicted in September. Some Republicans already are pushing for a House leadership vote in January to permanently replace DeLay. Priest has said he could not hold a trial in DeLay's case before early next year.
DeLay's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin of Houston, said he will ask Priest to hear additional motions to get the case thrown out of court next week. And if that fails, DeGuerin wants a trial to begin in January. "The longer he's out of his position, the less chance there is that he can regain it. Others are going to come in and take over," DeGuerin said. The case against DeLay, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis stems from an alleged scheme to get around the state election code's ban on corporate financing of candidates.
The DeLay-founded Texans for a Republican Majority raised about $600,000 in corporate donations during the 2002 state elections, but Texas law restricted that money to committee administrative expenses. In September 2002, TRMPAC donated $190,000 to the Republican National Committee, which within days sent $190,000 raised from individuals to seven GOP House candidates.
Prosecutors say that was an illegal swap of money, but the three defendants claim no such trade occurred. Colyandro was TRMPAC's executive director, while Ellis was his adviser and still is the executive director of DeLay's Americans for a Republican Majority, or ARMPAC.
Republicans, aided by TRMPAC's fund-raising activities, gained control of the Texas House in the 2002 elections. That takeover set the stage for DeLay to push a congressional redistricting plan through the Legislature in 2003 that helped Republicans win a 21-11 majority of the state's congressional seats in 2004.
DeLay's spokesman and lawyers for Ellis and Colyandro declared Priest's ruling as a major legal victory over Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle. "The court's decision to dismiss a portion of Ronnie Earle's manufactured and flawed case against Mr. DeLay underscores just how baseless and politically motivated the charges were," Kevin Madden, DeLay's spokesman, said in a statement. "Mr. DeLay is very encouraged by the swift progress of the legal proceedings and looks forward to his eventual and absolute exoneration based on the facts and the law," Madden said.
DeLay, at a fund-raiser Monday evening in Houston, declined to talk to reporters. Ellis' lawyer, J.D. Pauerstein, and Colyandro's attorney, Joe Turner, said they expect their clients to have their cases severed from DeLay if he succeeds in having his trial in January.
DeLay's last chance - - DeLay's only chance now to avoid trial entirely rests with his challenge to the remaining indictment on the grounds that it was returned by a grand jury as a result of prosecutorial misconduct by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle.
The election law conspiracy indictment that Priest threw out was returned Sept. 28 after months of investigation by a grand jury whose term was expiring. But when Earle realized he may have legal problems with that indictment, he tried to get another grand jury to indict DeLay on money laundering charges. That grand jury declined to issue any indictments on Sept. 30. Earle then got a third grand jury to indict DeLay on the money laundering charges on Oct. 3, the first day it met. DeGuerin said Earle's actions amount to prosecutor misconduct.
Priest has offered to hear the prosecutorial misconduct motion, as well as a motion to move the trial out of Travis County, either next week or the final week of December. But Earle has 15 days to appeal Priest's ruling, which could delay further hearings.
"We have received the opinion from Judge Priest and we are studying it," Earle's office said in a statement. "We have made no decision about whether to appeal any part of his ruling."
DeGuerin said he will ask Priest to move forward on the other motions even if Earle appeals the first ruling. "The longer that Earle can drag it out, the more damage he does and the less likely it is that the congressman can resume his leadership position," DeGuerin said. DeGuerin had challenged the indictments on numerous legal issues, but DeGuerin called two the "silver bullets."
One point was that the state conspiracy law did not apply to the election code until a year after the 2002 elections, an argument Priest accepted.
DeGuerin's other point was that the definition of money laundering did not include checks until 2005. TRMPAC transferred the corporate money to the RNC by check. DeGuerin also argued the money laundering statute could not be applied to the election code. Priest rejected that argument. He said the indictment refers to "funds" in TRMPAC's checking account and that was the money allegedly laundered.
Priest said even if the money was raised legally, if it was intentionally used to swap with the RNC donations that went to individual candidates "(prosecutors) will have established that the money was laundered."
DeGuerin said no money swap occurred.
DeLay, Ellis and Colyandro each face a possible punishment of five to 99 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000 on the first-degree felony money laundering charge. On the second-degree felony conspiracy charge, they face a possible two to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000 each.
"upheld" is a word with charged meaning. It implies that the trial has already been held and the conviction is being confirmed.
All this ruling means is that the remaining charges in the indictment have enough merit for the judge to let them go to trial--absent any prosecutorial malfeasance which is another issue that will be adjudicated later.
But the judge rejected that argument, too, saying the money became suspect when "it began to be held with the prohibited intent."
[The judge] said if prosecutors can prove that DeLay and his associates obtained the corporate donations "with the express intent of converting those funds to the use of individual candidates," or that they converted money legally collected by sending it to the RNC and asking for the same amount to be sent back to Texas candidates, "then they will have established that money was laundered."
I think this is the (somewhat tortured) logic behind the judge's thinking:
According to Chapter 34 of the Texas Penal Code, money laundering involves the "proceeds of criminal activity." "Criminal activity" is defined under the same chapter as "[A]ny offense, including any preparatory offense, that is classified as a felony under the laws of this state or the United States."
Section 253.104 makes it a third degree felony to knowingly make campaign contributions in violation of Section 257, which governs the uses of funds by political parties. Section 257 states corporations can only make donations to political parties to defray normal operating expenses of the party or to administer a primary election or convetion held by the party. Corporations are prohibited from direct contributions to candidates.
So, in plainer English, the judge is saying if the prosecution can prove that DeLay and his associates sent the money to the RNC with express intent to receive the same amount back to distribute to candidates, then they intended to violate Section 257 of the Texas Election Code, a third degree felony, which raises their act to the level of money laundering.
It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg argument.
This - in my view - turns the legal definition of money laundering on its head. DeLay & Co. are accused of intending to put money gained from a legal source to an allegedly illegal use, whereas money laundering is the process of transferring, in some legal fashion, money gained through illegal activity in order to conceal its origin.
Oh Chit! This means if you obey all traffic laws and come to a full stop at a stop sign because the stop sign told you to STOP you can still be charged with attempted vehicular manslaughter. Or like being charged with tax invasion by claiming lawful deductions on your tax return.
This is dangerous logic being applied to DeLay.