United States v. Leonard-Allen

WOOD, Circuit Judge.

Norma Leonard-Alien and Walter Stern became entangled in the financial arrangements that underlie this case during the aftermath of a lawsuit in which Stern served as Leonard-Allen’s attorney. The government charged that Stern hid some of Leonard-Allen’s assets so that she would not have to declare them in her bankruptcy proceeding. It maintained that Stern knew of Leonard-Allen’s bankruptcy when he opened certificates of deposit (CDs) with Leonard-Allen’s money, and thus that his action amounted to money laundering in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(h). Leonard-Alien, it…