Over the years Kent's wife, Jo, would withdraw ministry money to pay ministry bills from remodeling the older homes purchased for staff housing to paying the people ministering as independent contractors.
On July 13, 2006, they were indicted for “structuring.”
After a two-week trial, Kent's attorne stated to the jurythat said that, in order to structure, it had to be an amount over $10,000 rather than under that when Jo withdrew the money. The judge said if the jury found us guilty of taking out less they must find them guilty. Their attorneys objected and asked for a mistrial but the judge overruled.
The US attorney asked for all the money withdrawn in those 45 counts to be forfeited to the government even though it had long been spent on ministry bills and was not connected to drugs in anyway. Hovinds' objections to this were also overruled and they owed $430,000.
Is Kent right about the judge's ruling on whether the amount of the withdraw is around $10,000 and do these "structing" rules only apply to drug cases rather than Kent's case?
