So this is a situation where ignorance of the law does excuse violating it?
It's illegal to make repeated cash transactions less than $10,000 with the intent to evade the reporting requirements.
So if you are not aware of the reporting requirements it is very unlikely that you are violating the law (you certainly aren't violating the reasonable spirit of the law, you may not escape prosecution...).
I don't think it is so far away from other crimes where intent is evaluated (like murder vs manslaughter).
Convenience-store distribution is a cash-intensive business, and Hirsch said his accountant advised him that he should keep the company's deposits below $10,000 because banks didn't like the paperwork involved with Currency Transaction Reports.
The article states But there was no evidence of criminal activity, not that there was no evidence of intent (as the section I quoted makes clear, the intent was obvious).
Please note that I'm not making statements in favor of the law in these comments, just characterizing the facts as I see them.
ETA: as I keep reading, the second business was also intentionally avoiding the reporting requirements (after a teller told them how). The third one does not directly state that they were trying to avoid the reporting requirements.
Ignorance is not an excuse, but it can diminish the crime if the crime is defined in a way that requires intent.
For example, intent can be the difference between murder ("first degree" to Americans) and recklessly causing someone to die. If you poison someone's food and they die, it's murder. If you unwittingly poisoned the food, it's not, but you may be held accountable for a different crime (i.e. recklessness that resulted in death).
This distinction is okay. In fact I'd argue it's expected.
EDIT: Heck, if intent were irrelevant, it'd even be legal to plan to kill or harm people as long as you don't fully follow through. If you caught a terrorist before the act, you'd have to let them go because they haven't yet actually harmed anyone.
(IANAL, and these questions are meant only to incite thought or details (if anyone has any))
Is the state of being a terrorist the act of terrorizing or the thought of doing something that is terrorizing? If it's the latter, how is that different than a thought crime? Even if it's planned, but never executed, is one a terrorist? How does one distinguish between having planned but never intending to execute vs having planned but didn't get around to execute? Is a plan that is never executed a failed plan? There is a distinction between "murder" and "conspiracy to commit murder", the former being the act and the latter being participation in the planning.
If the actor attempts to terrorize and no one is actually terrorized, has an act of terrorism been committed?
If a program is designed, but never written, is it software? If a program is written, but never executed, is it software?
The law doesn't punish people who have drastic thoughts, it punishes people who have drastic thoughts and then bring them up to associates as something not so drastic.
I dunno, that's the difference to me
US law maybe. UK law is moving in a different direction... More towards punishing people whom are accused of having drastic thoughts. Citation - read the pre-election manifesto of the new UK government.
A. Transactions above $10,000 must be reported by the bank.
B. Bank customers can't structure withdrawals deliberately to evade the reporting requirement.
Ignorance of the reporting law de facto means that you haven't violated the evasion law. You can't deliberately evade something you know nothing about.
With this law, the actual "wrong thing" is trying to avoid the reporting requirement. If you just happen to need $8000 every week, then you aren't trying to avoid the reporting requirement, so you haven't violated the law.
Too many 2000-page bills. Too many "you have to pass it to know what's in it" bills. They can write it, and still not know what it says. But the hammer should fall on them for that, too, because if they had done a decent job writing it, it wouldn't be so hard to know what it says.
Of course the ones who got paid are doing 3 years in jail (and will probably lose all their pensions) whist the hacks got off scott free