That’s some impressive live math skills going on there. $20k is subtracted every time the amount of money gets mentioned.
“Hello? Is this the police? Yes, I’m a juror in the Covid relief fraud case and I’ve just been given $180,000 in cash by someone. Yes, yes, they were just here. 160 grand, just handed to me on my doorstop. Well, they rang the doorbell, and then they were standing right there with it. Dark sunglasses, headscarf, and a black bag of money. I’ve just finished counting it and there’s $140,000 in clean, crisp bills. They said there’d be more for me if I voted to acquit. Yes, I have the $120,000 right here.”
I wonder how they would try to back up a claim that the juror undervalued the down-payment of the attempted bribe. They can’t show actual receipts without revealing their money-laundering methods. At best they could argue "the bag in question is obviously too large to contain a bribe as small as the one alleged here.
Certainly a jury-briber would face credibility difficulties in court! But if there were middlemen involved and I wanted to be sure they were following through on the bribe instead of taking the money to a casino, I would expect photographic proof of the drop. But I’m not an idiot, so I wouldn’t do any of that in the first place!
In this case, it would be a lot simpler if we knew which defendants were involved in the bribery scheme. If all of them were in on it, then sure, but if only one or two were involved, then the others can make that argument. And if we don’t know who did it, then all of them can make that argument.
ETA: I’m not necessarily saying the appeal would prevail, but it’s a roll of the dice.
No.
No I can’t.
TFG never pays for anything he can avoid paying for.
Can I imagine some other abettor or co-conspirator, or one of their agents, some powerful wealthy kleptocrat making arrangements to drop a bag of cash on Some Useful (Ordinary) Person’s front doorstep?