Maybe a FedEx Box Isn't the Best Way to Hide $400,000 Cash From Your Ex-Wife

Photo: PBSO

Tom McPhillips: Not quite a money-laundering mastermind.

​Tom McPhillips of Cleveland may have been dealing with a ravenous ex-wife -- or at least her ravenous lawyer. But he still should have put a little more thought into his alleged plan to keep $400,000 out of her clutches.

He put it in the mail. FedEx, to be exact. And when the giant box of cash started coming apart at the FedEx in Riviera Beach, the Palm Beach Sheriff's Office must have thought they'd nabbed a drug-dealing kingpin.

Nope, the money trail led back to a plumber on Cleveland's East Side. McPhillips wasn't in the office when I called, so I got hold of a money-laundering expert on McPhillips' behalf to see if we could offer him some helpful tips.

"It amazes me how stupid people can be with a lot of money," says Mike McDonald, who spent 27 years investigating money laundering for the IRS before opening his own private consulting business in Palmetto Bay.

McDonald says there are at least two very simple, very legal ways that McPhillips could have moved the money to his father in Lake Worth:

Plan A: "Go to a U.S. Post Office. Take out money orders. Do it that way."
Plan B: "Or he should have just drove the money there. Make a nice leisurely trip -- buy some golf clubs on your way down. Enjoy yourself!"

FedEx is in the neighborhood of Plan Y or Z. "Large bundles of currency moving in unusual ways: That makes authorities suspicious that they're dealing with a major drug trafficking organization," says McDonald. For this reason, a small-timer like McPhillips, who may have been merely trying to cheat his wife, becomes public enemy number one.

He has been charged with money laundering, structuring payments to avoid bank reporting requirements, and being an unauthorized money courier.

But McDonald says that based on what's been made public, McPhillips didn't make the money through any illegal enterprise, which is the only way he can be charged with money laundering.

McDonald also doubts that the Palm Beach Sheriff's Office charges of being an unauthorized money courier will hold up in court.

"He is not under Florida law a courier, because it's his own money," says McDonald. "As long as the money is not involved in anything illegal, then the only angle for law enforcement is to go after him for violations of bank secrecy laws."

That is, structuring withdrawals in a way to avoid paying bank fees, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. But McDonald says that's a tough case for federal prosecutors, who must be able to prove intent and do so against the criminal standard of beyond a reasonable doubt. The upshot, based on what McDonald knows of the case: "I don't see him being prosecuted."

So live and learn, McPhillips. Next time, just get your ass in the car and take a drive to South Florida. While you're at it, spend the money on one of our many for-sale homes or condos. I'm pretty sure you'll find sellers who are willing to take cash.