Agenda - Planning Commission - 09/01/1998

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Page 8 -- August 25, 1998 Z.B. Lefevre was a member of the Deer Valley Village Planning Committee. She was an active and vocal opponent of commercial development in the area. Friedman was one of Dartmouth's owners. At a planning commission meeting, Friedman told the other developer's attorney that Lefevre wouldn't oppose the rezoning of either property if each developer contributed $50,000 to charities of her choosing. Immediately thereafter, the attorney approached..Lefevre and said the developer had conveyed her offer. He said he asked her, "Is this correct?" to which she replied, "Yes." Later that evening, the attorney informed the owners of The Shores about Lefevre's proposal and said he thought Friedman was "willing to consider it." A month before the planning commission meeting, Lefevre had opened a bank account in the name of "Andon Enterprise," with all deposits to be paid from an account owned by Dartmouth Group. Two days after that, an $11,700 check, signed by Friedman, had been deposited into the Andon account. Over the next 10 months, Friedman wrote nine checks to the Andon account, each for $2,000. The total deposits equaled $29,700. Lefevre withdrew m6ney from the Andon account for her personal use. Two days after the first deposit, for example, she withdrew more than $9,700 and deposited it into her own account. She also made many ATM cash withdrawals from the Andon account. One of The Shore's owners eventually told the county about Lefevre's offer. The county began a criminal investigation in 1989, and in 1994, charged her with money laundering and three counts of bribery. The county also charged Friedman with bribing a public servant. Lefevre admitting saying she wouldn't oppose the rezoning applications if each developer contributed $50,000 to charity but claimed it was a joke. She said the $29,700 deposited into the Andon account represented an advance on a finder's fee for her help in finding a buyer for a $23 million parcel of commercial property Friedman owned. The jury acquitted Lefevre of all bribery charges but convicted her of money laundering. Friedman was convicted of bribing a public servant. Lefevre appealed her conviction. She claimed the money laundering statute was unconstitutionally vague because it allowed her to be convicted if she "had reason to know" she had received illegal proceeds, even though she didn't actually know she received "dirty" money. DECISION: Affirmed. Lefevre was properly convicted of money laundering. The statute was constitutional. The statute gave persons of average intelligence reasonable notice of the type of behavior that was prohibited, which was all that was necessary to defeat Lefevre's "vagueness" claim. The statute was intentionally written to apply not only to those who knowingly dealt with illegal proceeds but also to those who reasonably should have known they were dealing with dirty money.