With the arrests of several high-profile rappers charged under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, some may wonder what RICO is and how it applies to their cases.
RICO was made law in 1970 and gave the authorities stronger tools for gathering evidence when investigating organized crime organizations, according to the Department of Justice.
It allows law enforcement to connect what would on the surface appear to be unrelated crimes but which have common objectives that can be prosecuted showing the patterns of crimes.
RICO also brings with it stronger penalties, allowing a defendant to be convicted of individual crimes, as well as racketeering activity.
Connected crimes could be “illegal gambling, bribery, kidnapping, murder, money laundering, counterfeiting, embezzlement, drug trafficking, slavery, and a host of other unsavory business practices,” according to the law website NOLO.com.
In all, there are 35 crimes that can be considered under the RICO Act, according to Justia.
The website said that to be convicted under RICO, a defendant must have been convicted of at least two of the illegal activities and have been “directly invested in, maintained an interest in, or participated in a criminal enterprise affecting interstate or foreign commerce.”
The crimes must have happened within 10 years, according to Justia.
Prosecutors must be able to allege that a criminal enterprise exists and that the person being charged as a racketeer exists independently of the enterprise but is either an investor, the person in charge, a participator or a conspirator in the organization, according to James Crawford Law website.
It has been used to prosecute the mafia, the Hells Angels and Ponzi schemes.
Being convicted of a RICO violation can bring a long prison sentence, according to Justia, and it can have a powerful financial hit too, because victims of a RICO violation can bring civil suits against participants. If such a suit is successful, the plaintiff can win three times the damages incurred.
©2022 Cox Media Group
:quality(70)/d1hfln2sfez66z.cloudfront.net/03-07-2024/t_a04eea43993e4d4a91177d329640b460_name_Tran_6p_Everett_Woman_homicide_LL_pkg_frame_22938.jpeg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/DV3D5PBQIZFEPANBGDDAZHIA5I.jpg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/BEJ4ANVJ35FCZPPNOAUSAMDRF4.jpg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/SJPHEIUFCFBN5CV66FIPLEJCZY.jpg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/PUJDZILT55G7DMFTOYVH6AAE2Y.jpeg)