Comments on: Spitzer and “structuring”

By: T. Bartlett

T. Bartlett — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:17:16 +0000

Avoiding use of credit cards can easily be construed as structuring because a paper trail was not left. There is no minimum limit to any transaction. Any government prosecuter can obtain a conviction at will on anyone who has used cash to pay for an item, no matter how small.

Credit card issuers are notoriously fraudulant with fees and charges. Some people avoid their use.

The purchase of a cold drink at a McDonalds with cash is structuring and it is punishable by five years in prison.

By: Eric

Eric — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 02:59:19 +0000

I sort of agree with Ted. As a former bank employee, we would be required to file an SAR if there were multiple deposits to an account for more than $10K from one particular entity to another entity within a “illogical timeframe” involving cash. If we saw anything whatsoever that was suspicious, we would have to report it.
One of the pieces of information given through the media here in Albany is that the monies were transfered to a dummy corporation first. It was not a direct payment from Spitzer to the Emperor’s Club. That has been made apparent. Also, if the money he spent was sent thru a wire transfer from the dummy business to Emperor’s, then a CTR (nor a SAR realistically) is not required by the bank for the dummy business (nor his own I would assume. would you question Donald Trump everytine he made a large transfer of funds?). Many companies do multi-million dollar deals with others. For bookkeeping references, they may request to submit 10 or more transfers to indicate what each payment is for. One company may submit a $1.2M transfer for the sale of a property, another $600K for the building, and $150K for other values associated. Over the course of one business day, you may see three seperate transfers for $1.95M. If you submitted a SAR everytime this happened, the IRS would be caught up in a backlog of data. Spitzer is/was the governor. He made other purchases you and I make everyday. My belief is that there is some other evidence out there implicating him. But it is too early to tell right now what the government has on the situation. We obviously do not know all the facts, other than what the media is telling us.

By: Walter Olson

Walter Olson — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 23:59:39 +0000

I don't think it's plausible that Spitzer could have been unaware of Suspicious Activity Reports and their role in law enforcement. Per Wednesday's NYT, "When he was New York State’s attorney general, Mr. Spitzer himself used the reports to make his cases."

By: Ted

Ted — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 23:40:37 +0000

Two $6000 wire transactions done at the same time to a single recipient would be enough to trigger a mandatory Suspicious Activity Report by a bank. It's entirely possible that Spitzer was unaware of SARs: these are arcane federal regulations he had nothing to do with as AG, and if he were aware of the obviousness of the structuring, he'd surely know that the SAR would attract much more scrutiny than the CTR he was evading.

By: Clueby4

Clueby4 — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 19:27:44 +0000

Love how this gets “enhanced” press coverage but the current administration’s laundry list of alleged crimes gets nothing.