Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act

• Author: Robert Diderot Garcia
• Pages: 2111-2113

Page 2111

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) was enacted by Congress in 1970 to provide federal prosecutors with a powerful tool against organized crime. RICO has been used against the ruling commission of the Mafia in New York City, against corrupt politicians running local government agencies, against Croatian terrorists, against political demonstrators, against the Sicilian Mafia for importing billions of dollars of heroin into the United States in the pizza connection case (the longest criminal trial in federal history), in the largest criminal tax-fraud prosecution in history, and against massive insider-trading securities fraud.

RICO is a complex statute that creates both criminal sanctions and civil remedies, enforceable by the government or by injured private parties. The heart of the statute defines four crimes. First, it is illegal to establish, operate, or acquire an interest in any enterprise affecting either INTERSTATE COMMERCE or FOREIGN COMMERCE with income from a pattern of racketeering activity or collection of an unlawful debt. Second, the act prohibits acquiring or maintaining an interest in any such enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity or collection of an unlawful debt. Third, it is a crime for any employee or associate of any such enterprise to participate in the enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity or collection of an unlawful debt. And fourth, it is illegal to conspire to violate any of the first three provisions. A "pattern" of racketeering requires the commission of two or more "predicate offenses" within a ten-year period. These offenses include nine categories of state crimes and twenty-six federal crimes, including murder; drug trafficking; bribery; and mail, wire, and securities fraud. As discussed in United States v. Turkette (1981), an "enterprise" includes any individual, partnership, corporation, association, union, or group of individuals associated in fact, whether legitimate or illegitimate. Conviction under RICO carries severe criminal penalties and forfeiture of ill-gotten gains. A person may be liable for triple damages, costs, and attorneys' fees in a private civil RICO action. RICO is unique in its complexity among criminal statutes because of the sheer number of potential predicate offenses and because of the indefinite terms used in defining a violation.

In H.J. Inc. v. Northwestern Bell Telephone Co. (1989) the...