[EL] Episode of "Castle" with $160 million from drug operation funneled through super-PACs to presidential candidate

[Scarberry, Mark]

Some of you may have seen the popular detective show, Castle. The eponymous Richard Castle, played by Nathan Fillion of Firefly* fame, is a detective fiction writer who helps his fiancé, detective Beckett (played by Stana Katic) solve murders.

In an episode that aired on March 3, Beckett goes undercover to find out who is running a drug ring. It turns out to be a senator who has funneled $160 million in drug money through a couple of Super-PACs to fund his war chest for a presidential run (though we don't find out about that until near the end of the episode).

Fantasy, but an interesting way to make people fear SuperPAC secrecy.

You can see the episode here, http://abc.go.com/shows/castle/episode-guide/season-06/617-in-the-belly-of-the-beast, if you're willing to watch a few commercials first.

Mark S. Scarberry
Professor of Law
Pepperdine Univ. School of Law

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_series).  A poster with a favorite Fillion line was the subject of a first amendment kerfuffle. See http://www.thefire.org/insult-to-injury-quote-from-sci-fi-classic-firefly-censored-on-campus/. The link in that story to the poster doesn't work, but you can see it here: http://www.feoamante.com/FeoNews/articles/FireFly/DontMess.html#.UyJ2R_mwLYk. The scene depicted in the poster is number 12 here: http://www.buzzfeed.com/louispeitzman/iconic-captain-mal-moments-from-firefly. See also http://reason.com/blog/2011/12/29/fires-firefly-victory, http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/12/27/how-firefly-fans-and-neil-gaiman-used-social-media-to-save-free-speech/, and http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111227/15534717208/how-firefly-fans-made-one-universitys-campus-safe-free-speech.shtml (which has a larger image of the poster).

Sorry; I really wish they hadn't canceled the series! (And so does my about-to-go-to-college daughter.)
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