In response to the above-posed blog headline, we know that our readers in the Detroit metro area and across Michigan will reasonably note that every piece of material evidence in a criminal law case is subject to closest scrutiny and must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
Still, that doesn't preclude a jury's inclination -- predisposition, if you will -- to attribute instant credence to the statements uttered by a supposed eyewitness to criminal behavior.
It wasn't long ago that federal attorneys in the U.S. Department of Justice were busy crafting rules and guidelines to rein in the known excesses and many aberrational outcomes linked with the so-called War on Drugs.
In fact, criminal sentencing reform in the federal realm was a top-shelf focus of the Obama presidential administration and the U.S. Department of Justice under the helm of former Attorney General Eric Holder.
If you're the owner of a small business in the metro Detroit area or elsewhere in the United States, you likely make frequent runs to your local bank to deposit funds received.
And if you are at all representative of a prototypical shop, store, retailer or other type of enterprise operating across the country, it is just as likely that a number of transactions you make with your banker are for less than $10,000
To its adherents (chiefly tax officials and government bureaucrats looking for ways to increase incoming revenues), it is winning legislation of the highest order.
To those who oppose it, though (a broad-based amalgam of business groups, legislators, privacy-rights advocates and taxpayers), it simply spells anathema, and needs to be eradicated without delay.
One of the last official acts of outgoing President Barack Obama last week could hardly be termed trivial.
Indeed, the former chief executive took unprecedented action last Thursday, on the eve of the incoming Trump presidential administration, by commuting the sentences of many federal inmates serving lengthy incarceration periods on drug-related charges.
In the United States, fraud can take many forms. The United States Treasury Department is continually designing and printing new bills to prohibit and minimize counterfeiting. With the advances in technology, internet fraud is wreaking havoc to thousands of Americans each year. Money laundering and is not uncommon in the many organized crime organizations throughout the country.
According to the Justice Department, employees of Volkswagen and VW of America were actively involved in perpetrating the emissions fraud VW has admitted took place. In October, a VW engineer pled guilty to a single count of conspiring to defraud the U.S. government and has agreed to cooperate with investigations in both the U.S. and Germany.
While it is unclear whether the engineer's cooperation was at play, a second executive was recently arrested in the scandal. The man, a former general manager in charge of the Engineering and Environmental Office in Bloomfield Hills, is accused of wire fraud, violating the Clean Air Act and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government. He is expected in Detroit for arraignment.
Prior to the passage of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) in 1978, state and federal prosecutors often complained of their inability to meaningfully penetrate organized criminal groups and punish upper-echelon wrongdoers who were the true authors of illegal activity.
Since RICO's passage, that lament is heard far less often.
OK, we all know well enough that federal and state taxes comprise a tough and sticky realm in the United States. Filing a tax return has seldom been an easy slam dunk for a resident of Michigan or any other state, given the complex nature of our tax system, which is coupled, quite literally, with fine-print exactions spanning many thousands of pages.
Given its headache-inducing propensities, the annual exercise of grappling with taxes results in errors. As a recent Forbes article on tax-related concerns duly notes, "Taxes are complex, and mistakes happen."
Any reference to federal crimes applies to a truly broad universe of possibilities, given the scope of federal authorities over many criminal matters and charging possibilities. Those include things like organized crime activities, ranging from interstate drug trafficking to kidnapping.
They also include unlawful acts that reside under the umbrella of so-called "white collar" crimes. Criminal charges in this realm of law range from tax evasion, securities-fraud schemes and money laundering to embezzlement, mortgage scams and Medicare fraud.
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