Richard "Dick" Low, M.D. is the Alabama doctor in question. He lives in Haleysville (205 + 486-3916 [o], 486-2400 His attorney, Michael Seibert, Esq. of Huntsville ((205)852-3592) tells me this in bare outline is the story:
 
    Three years ago Dr. Low, at the request of a friend who had establish a new bank, order his then current banker to transfer his funds to the new bank. The amount was approximately $2.6 million and represented his life savings. The transfer was accomplished by a series of checks drawn by the bank official who had been instructed by Dr. Low. Dr. Low was unaware of the need to file a CTR and in any case his attorney says the banker should have filed it for him, as was customary, altho' the legal responsibility for filing was the doctor's under the 1986 Money Laundering Act.
 
    Low's attorney, Mr. Seibert, believes the reason the US Attorney went after the doctor, who was never charged with any other extraneous crime, was because of the amount of money involved and the fact that the law makes a felony of not filing the CTR, punishable with possible jail and a $250,000 fine. Even if the government did not get all the doctor's money, they believed they would get something big in the way of bucks.
 
    When Low put up a major fight (he even fired a professional PR firm), the government was angered and surprised and as a pressure tactic, they got the IRS to place liens on all his property and other assets because, with no cash available, he was unable to pay his usual income taxes when they became due. They also charged the doctor with conspiracy to obstruct justice, meaning he was fighting the government in every way he knew how. The court dismissed this ridiculous charge early on.
 
    The end result was that Dr. Low, after trial in US District Court, was acquitted of all charges and his $2.6 million returned by court order. He then settled his tax situation with the IRS. However, he sued the government for $317,000 in interest he lost during the time they held his funds, won that case, and the government has appealed the ruling to the 11th Circuit where it is now pending.

    Attorney Seibert says the case was a "nightmare" for the doctor, his wife and him as well. Seibert says the government attitude in this case was no different from Waco or Ruby Ridge, except no one died. He says the entire affair cost the doctor several hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees for both Seibert and Bo Edwards, a local criminal defense attorney who handled part of the case.

    Seibert said he did not think Dr. Low would have any objection to our identifying him by name in our literature, since he welcomed publicity about his ordeal in order to warn others of what can happen.