https://thedailyrecord.com/2024/03/18/doj-asks-supreme-court-to-reject-ravenell-money-laundering-appeal/

The U.S. Department of Justice is urging the nation’s highest court to reject a petition from Baltimore defense attorney Kenneth W. Ravenell, who has challenged his 2021 conviction on a count of money laundering.

The government’s brief, filed last week before the U.S. Supreme Court, argues that Ravenell failed to prove at trial that he withdrew from a money laundering conspiracy involving one of his former criminal defense clients.

A five-year statute of limitations is central to Ravenell’s appeal. The defense team has argued that jurors at Ravenell’s trial should have been instructed on the statute of limitations and might have acquitted him if they found the money laundering conspiracy ended before July 2014, when the statute of limitations period began.

Once a sought-after criminal defense attorney who argued before the U.S. Supreme Court himself, Ravenell now faces nearly five years in federal prison if his conviction survives this appeal.

At Ravenell’s trial, the government accused him of helping to launder nearly $2 million in drug money for a former criminal defense client who ran a marijuana trafficking organization. The client, Richard Byrd, testified for the prosecution that Ravenell provided advice on how to evade law enforcement and accepted drug money as payment for his services.

Jurors found Ravenell guilty of money laundering but acquitted him of other charges, including racketeering and narcotics conspiracy, in December 2021.

Ravenell has argued on appeal that the government had to show his involvement in the conspiracy continued into the statute of limitations period.

In its latest filing, the government countered that the statute of limitations is an affirmative defense in non-overt act conspiracy cases, making it the defense’s job to prove when the conspiracy ended.

“To raise the statute of limitations as a defense, the defendant must meet a burden of production by identifying evidence that the conspiracy terminated or the defendant affirmatively withdrew,” attorneys for the government wrote in their brief.

A jury instruction is only appropriate when a defendant shows evidence that the conspiracy ended before the statute of limitations period, the lawyers wrote. And the government went beyond its burden in this case by offering evidence that Ravenell was involved in the money laundering conspiracy past the statute of limitations deadline, the government argued.

“…Because the government introduced ‘ample evidence’ that the conspiracy continued beyond July 2, 2014, while petitioner offered ‘no affirmative evidence’ to support his statute-of-limitations defense, petitioner is unlikely to prevail even under the rule that he espouses” the government wrote.

A U.S. district judge and a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have both rejected Ravenell’s arguments. In a 2-1 decision, an appeals court panel concluded that the defense offered no affirmative evidence to show that Ravenell withdrew from the money laundering conspiracy before the statute of limitations period began.

The full appeals court voted 9-5 against reconsidering the panel’s decision.

Ravenell’s lawyers asked the U.S. Supreme Court to step in last year, arguing that there is a split among federal circuit courts on the statute of limitations issue.

The justices still have not said whether they will take up the case. Ravenell’s sentence is on hold until the Supreme Court rules on his petition for certiorari.