Court Accepts Money Laundering Case
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether the ban on money laundering applies if a criminal operation didn’t turn a profit, SCOTUSblog reports. The court also remanded two cases challenging state partial-birth abortion laws.
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether the ban on money laundering applies if a criminal operation didn’t turn a profit, SCOTUSblog reports.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled in U.S. v. Santos, 461 F.3d 886 (2006), that the law didn’t apply to an illicit lottery that spent its proceeds on operating expenses. Circuit precedent holds that the money laundering law applies to net rather than gross profits, the appeals court said, noting that other appeals courts have disagreed.
The U.S. Solicitor General says the 7th Circuit ruling “removes a large class of routinely prosecuted money laundering cases from the reach of the [money laundering] statute,” the Associated Press reports.
The court also remanded two cases challenging state partial-birth abortion laws, Scotusblog says.
