By Tresa Baldas

Ex-Detroit Rep. Kenneth Daniels once took %2419%2C000 from a drug kingpin to help buy him a Mercedes.

Daniels helped hide the criminal activity of a drug dealer through sneaky financial transactions.

Daniels was the only one who showed for the drug trial verdict%3B the 3 others fled%2C but got caught.

A former state representative from Detroit will spend one year in prison for his role in a massive drug operation: he helped hide the kingpin from authorities through crafty financial transactions.

Former Democratic State Rep. Kenneth Daniels, who was charged with helping buy a Mercedes Benz for a now convicted drug dealer, was sentenced to one year in prison Wednesday after a jury previously convicted him of structuring financial transactions. Among those transactions, authorities said, was taking money from a drug dealer and helping him buy a $40,000 Mercedes Benz with it.

That drug dealer was Carlos Powell, who along with his brother Eric Powell and another defendant, were convicted in May alongside Daniels in a major drug case that involved $21 million in laundered money and massive amounts of cocaine, heroin and marijuana.

In a bizarre twist in the case, the Powell brothers and the third defendant, Earnest Proge, all disappeared after the jury verdict was delivered, triggering an international manhunt that ended with all three eventually getting captured.

The only one who showed to hear the verdict was Daniels.

Here, according to evidence presented at trial, is how Daniels executed the transactions to aid Powell:

Daniels received $19,000 from Powell — who split the money into two smaller amounts — and went to two separate banks to obtain cashier checks in order to evade legal requirements to report transactions exceeding $10,000. Daniels then returned the checks to Powell, who used the money to buy a Mercedes Benz.

The jury concluded that Daniels structured these transactions so that Powell's finances would not get scrutinized.

Daniels denied the allegations all along. On the day he was arraigned, his lawyer said the charges against his client were "truly out of character."

"He is a victim of circumstances," attorney Tom Jakuc said of Daniels following his arraignment in U.S. District Court. "The charges are not consistent with his background."

Daniels served in the Michigan Legislature from 1999 through 2004. He also served three years as an elected member of the Detroit Board of Education and was appointed by former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department board.