Ethics

Hovind Conviction Upheld on Appeal

By Ed Brayton

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has denied the appeal (PDF) of Kent and Jo Hovind for their conviction on tax evasion charges. One of the silly arguments they made in the appeal was on the structuring charges, which means they were accused - in 45 counts - of structuring their bank withdrawals just below the $10,000 limit in order to evade federal reporting requirements (all transactions larger than $10,000 must be reported to the government).

The Hovinds argued, bizarrely, that they weren't guilty of structuring because the government couldn't prove that those transactions were actually above the $10,000 threshold. But if they were, in fact, above that threshold then they could not have been charged with structuring. They don't seem to understand what they were charged with. The ruling states:

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on January 03, 2009 (boomark / email).