Another attorney admits laundering drug money
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A federal grand jury investigation into crooked Seattle-area lawyers has nabbed another — the third member of the local bar since last fall to plead guilty to either laundering drug-trafficking money or failing to report transactions involving drug cash. Seattle attorney Joel Manalang, who specializes in real estate law and runs an escrow business, admitted in U.S. District Court on Tuesday that he received more than $200,000 in cash stored in duffel bags and shoe boxes, money that he used to buy real estate for drug dealers. The investigation of Manalang by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents grew out of larger inquiry by the grand jury into at least four Seattle-area criminal defense attorneys over possible money laundering and involvement in the drug crimes of their clients, sources in the local bar and grand jury witnesses said. That grand jury investigation continues — although the sources say that the cases against some of the four lawyers targeted have been resolved. Former Edmonds Municipal Court Judge James L. White — a former Edmonds city councilman and candidate for the state Supreme Court — last year admitted accepting a backpack stuffed with $100,000 from an international drug ring. A friend of White’s, A. Mark Vanderveen, became involved in the same drug ring that moved millions of dollars in cocaine and marijuana north and south across the Canadian border. Vanderveen — a former assistant Seattle city attorney who has been a pro-tem judge in Edmonds and other area municipal courts — admitted he picked up half his $20,000 legal fee at the Edmonds courthouse, where White had stashed it in a plain brown paper bag. More : /seattlepi.nwsource.com |