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The latest indictment against Donald Trump, for conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia, includes charges once used to convict mob bosses like John Gotti and Carmine Persico.
District Attorney Fannie Willis announced that she was using Georgia's 'RICO' law to charge Trump and 18 alleged associates with participating in a vast conspiracy to keep him in power.
RICO— or the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act—was originally created to help prosecutors dismantle organized crime groups from the top down.
The federal RICO Act was enacted in 1970 as a means of combating organized crime. The law made it possible for prosecutors to go after mafia bosses and not just low-level criminals who did the dirty work.
But it was not intended to be used only for organized crime. In 1989, the Supreme Court, in an opinion, stated that "the law had a wide scope and could include a series of criminal offenses, of different forms, in which a wide range of offenders could be involved". Several years after the passage of the federal law, various states passed their own versions of the RICO law. In short, the RICO law allows prosecutors to charge a number of individuals who commit separate crimes but have the same common goal.
Georgia's RICO law was enacted in 1980 and criminalizes participating in, creating, or maintaining control of an "organization" through "a series of organized criminal activities," or conspiring to do so. A criminal activity does not necessarily have to be successful in order to be prosecuted under the RICO Act.
The term "organization" can mean a single person, or a group of people, who have the same goal. "Organized crime" means committing, or intending to commit; soliciting, blackmailing, or threatening someone to commit one of the more than 30 crimes listed in the state's criminal code.
At least two criminal offenses must have been committed in order to meet the standard of "repeated organized criminal activity", or in other words, prosecutors must prove that an individual was involved in two or more criminal offences. as part of his activities in a criminal organization, to be tried under the RICO Act.
The Supreme Court, in its opinion on the federal "RICO" law, states that the charges must show continuity, that is, a series of criminal offenses have been committed over a long period of time, not just within a few weeks and months. But the Georgia Supreme Court has clarified that Georgia's RICO law contains no such time requirements.
Why the RICO Act
"I am a supporter of 'RICO'," said prosecutor Willis in August 2022, while announcing charges based on this law against more than 20 defendants as members of criminal gangs.
The prosecutor said jurors want to know all the facts surrounding an alleged crime, and RICO charges allow prosecutors to provide a complete picture of all illegal activity.
Pleading guilty to RICO charges carries severe penalties, which can be added to the penalties for lesser charges.
In Georgia, it carries prison terms of 5 to 20 years; a fine of $25,000, or three times the amount of the proceeds of the criminal activity, or both, imprisonment and a fine.
Challenges of using RICO law by the prosecution
Prokurori J. Tom Morgan përdori ligjin ‘RICO’ për të akuzuar një sherif të korruptuar në Qarkun DeKalb, ngjitur me qarkun Fulton. Një prej sfidave, thotë ai, është t’i shpjegosh jurisë se çfarë nënkupton ligji ‘RICO’ dhe si funksionon.
“Të gjithë e kuptojnë se ç’do të thotë një akuzë për vrasje, për përdhunim, ose për vjedhje. Por termi ‘RICO’ nuk është pjesë e fjalorit të përditshëm”, thotë ai. “Nuk është një akuzë që shihet në serialet televizivë për krimet”.
Përvoja e Prokurores Willis me ligjin ‘RICO’
Kur ishte Zv/Prokurore qarku në Fulton, ajo drejtoi hetimet dhe ngriti akuza bazuar në ligjin ‘RICO’ ndaj një grupi mësimdhënësish të sistemit publik në një skandal mashtrimi.
After a month-long trial, in April 2015, a jury found 11 former teachers guilty of organized crime for their role in a scheme to artificially inflate end-of-year standardized test scores. the state.
Since becoming chief district attorney in January 2021, she has filed several RICO charges against members of criminal gangs, including several popular rap singers.
Attorney John Floyd, a nationally recognized RICO legal expert based in Atlanta, Georgia, was one of Attorney Willis' assistants in the teachers' case. After opening the 2020 election investigation, she hired attorney Floyd as special counsel to assist her in the event that her office were to file RICO charges.
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