RICO ACT
WHY IN NEWS ?
- Recently, criminal charges filed against former US President Donald Trump in Georgia state court include allegations that he violated an anti-organised crime law known as RICO.
WHAT IS RICO ?
- US lawmakers passed the federal Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act in 1970 to battle organised crime, notably the mafia.
- Most states enacted similar laws with various twists.
- The main requirements under the federal RICO law are at least two underlying crimes and participation in a criminal enterprise over a long period of time.
- Georgia’s RICO law does not require criminal enterprises to be long running and lists nearly 50 underlying crimes that qualify as racketeering, compared with 35 under its federal counterpart.
- Defendants who are found guilty of Georgia RICO charges face between five and 20 years in prison, and while federal law has the same maximum, it does not have a minimum.
CRIMES COVERED BY RICO ACT:
A violation of RICO occurs when a person, in connection with an enterprise, engages in a pattern of racketeering activity. Racketeering activity includes:
- Arson
- Bribery
- Counterfeiting
- Distribution of a controlled substance
- Embezzlement
- Extortion
- Gambling
- Homicide
- Kidnapping
- Mail fraud
- Money laundering
- Robbery
- Wire fraud
- Witness tampering
PENALTIES UNDER THE ACT:
- A conviction under RICO has serious consequences.
- Not only does the RICO statute provide for criminal penalties including 20 years of prison, but the financial penalties are severe.
- A person convicted can face a fine of either $250,000 or double the amount of proceeds earned from illicit activity.
- The prison time can increase to up to a life sentence depending on the underlying crime that was committed.
- In the event of a conviction, forfeiture of the defendant’s entire interest in the enterprise is handed over to the government.
- Because of the loss of these assets, the enterprise can suffer irreparable harm and even dismantlement.
RISKS OF USING RICO:
- RICO cases are inherently more complex because prosecutors must first prove the existence of a criminal enterprise.
- The Trump indictment names an additional 18 co-defendants, including Trump’s onetime lawyer Rudy Giuliani, his former chief of staff Mark Meadows and lawyer John Eastman.
- Prosecutors will need to prove that Trump and his co-defendants worked together towards a common criminal purpose, which is not always as straightforward as proving an underlying RICO crime.
- But each additional co-defendant is another that prosecutors could coax into testifying against the others.
WHY HAS TRUMP BEEN CHARGED UNDER RICO ?
- Trump has been charged for 40 other crimes, which mainly include forgery, making false statements, impersonating a public officer, influencing witnesses, and conspiracy, but the accusations under RICO lie at the heart of the indictment.
- It says that Trump and 18 other individuals “constituted a criminal organisation whose members and associates engaged in various criminal activities”.
- This criminal organisation, according to the indictment, constituted an “enterprise committed overt acts to affect [their criminal] objectives”.
- The indictment lists details of as many as 161 separate criminal “acts” that it alleges were “committed in furtherance of the conspiracy and had the same and similar intents, results, accomplices, victims, and methods of commission and otherwise were interrelated by distinguishing characteristics and were not isolated acts”.
SYLLABUS: PRELIMS, CURRENT AFFAIRS
