Opinion ID: 1035557
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Substantive Money Laundering Charges

Text: Count 11 charged Lopez with knowingly laundering $15,000 in unlawfully derived property from a Wells Fargo account on April 17, 2007. Count 13 charged Galaviz with knowingly laundering $30,000 in unlawfully derived property, by means of a Laredo National Bank cashier’s check, on or about January 23, 2008. Count 14 charged Galaviz with knowingly laundering $48,304.31 in unlawfully derived property, by means of a check drawn from BBVA Compass Account No. 1782, on or about April 17, 2008. Count 12 charged Magana with knowingly laundering $15,000 in unlawfully derived property, on or about March 29, 2007, by making a payment on Salas’s house in Laredo using a check drawn on Chase Account No. 7697. These amounted to charges for money laundering in violation, inter alia, of 18 U.S.C. § 1957(a). The elements of money laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1957(a), are: (i) “property valued at more than $10,000 that was derived from a specified unlawful activity”; (ii) “the defendant’s engagement in a financial transaction with the property”; and (iii) “the defendant’s knowledge that the property was derived from unlawful activity.” Fuchs, 467 F.3d at 907 (citations omitted).6 “Unlawfully” or “criminally derived property” is “property constituting, or derived from, proceeds obtained from a criminal offense,” such as drug 6 We emphasize that the knowledge inquiry looks only to whether the property was derived from an “unlawful activity.” Accordingly, the mens rea element of the offense does not extend to whether the defendant knowingly laundered the funds, only whether the defendant knew the funds were illicit and engaged in a “financial transaction” with them regardless. 6 Case: 11-41376 Document: 00512323905 Page: 7 Date Filed: 07/29/2013 Nos. 11-41376 c/w 11-41392 trafficking. See 18 U.S.C. § 1957(f)(2). A “financial” or “monetary transaction” is “the deposit, withdrawal, transfer, or exchange, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, of funds or a monetary instrument . . . by, through, or to a financial institution,” but “does not include any transaction necessary to preserve a person’s right to representation as guaranteed by the [S]ixth [A]mendment to the Constitution.” Id. § 1957(f)(1).