As a guy who spent a lot of years excelling in all the otherwise useless skills of catching bad guys I know that sooner or later
somebody talks. At the very least, the authorities already have information, or will one day run across something, that might lead to an investigation. They may never get busted because sometimes you just can't make the case, but eventually somebody will start looking into what's going on.
When it comes to criminal activity we tend to see everyone in broad categories: victims, witnesses or bad guys. People can occupy more than one category. For example, a victim could be a crook who got done wrong by other crooks, or a witness can be a person who committed an illegal act who can also testify about their personal knowledge of the acts of the really bad guys.
People like your client often fall into that very last group - witnesses who have some degree of culpability. Now, the extent of her criminal culpability may merely be the posession of "...undeniable proof that the partners are doing illegal money laundering ..." but that is a crime under Federal Law. In fact, it's one of those really cool laws that we seldom used against big crooks, but we whipped out on much less culpable crooks who could testify. It's like the federal equivalent of a parking ticket - a parking ticket that's worth 5 years in Club Fed. It's a Misprison of Felony, and not a lot of people go to prison for it but many witness/crooks are faced with this choice: "Do you want to be a witness for the Government, or a defendant facing five years in Federal Prison for committing a Misprison of a Felony?" Few people go to prison for such things because they find the witness stand much more comfortable than the defendant's chair.
The fact that what is going on is at least money laundering means that it will be likely investigated by federal agents or by the local police who will seek federal prosecution. Having spent several years leading a federal task force doing nothing but major international conspiracies I can assure you that the federal government has provided it's agents with some major cool laws, is not afraid of using them, and they are brutally effective. We local cops that worked in the Federal system, and looked upon most of our federal bretheren as not-quite bumblers, used to have a joke about it:
Hey, do you know why Federal conspiracy cases are so easy to make? So Federal Agents can make them.*
The point of telling that joke is to point out that experienced state and local cops, who thought they understood how to use laws as a tool, when introduced to the use of Federal law are amazed by the power that lives inside the Federal Codes. I'll be honest in saying that there were times I was more than a litttle scared at how much is illegal and how easily it gets prosecuted. A friend, a former cop who later became an assistant D.A. before going into private practice, called to buy me lunch one day. His boss was laundering money for clients who, unknown to any of them, were targets being investigated by one of my squads. He had no direct involvement and his "knowledge" was little more than a cop's suspicions, but he
knew that eventually somebody would start looking into it and he wanted to come forward and offer all of his assistance rather than have us come to him and make him "the offer".
"Look, I know how you'all work, these dudes will wind up on somebody's radar screen eventually and I don't want any part of being on the wrong side of it. I want to be the good citizen who came forward of his own volition rather than the questionable quy you threaten with some cheesy fed crime."
That's the deal your client might be facing. Who knows, she may stick there and walk away with her retirement and nothing ever happens. Or there might be a grand jury meeting right now to issue sealed indictments for the big "round up" next week. If I was in her position, I would seriously consider some option other than hoping that nothing happened. **
* My apologies to any retired feds here - but I heard enough "local yokel" comments that I used to lash out in retaliation. I'm over it now and love all of you guys.
** See my PM
