White Collar Crime: RICO

Abstract

This book explores the intersection of white collar crime and a contraversial and very broad criminal statute, RICO (the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act). White collar crime is a rapidly growing area of criminal law with unique criminal procedure and an important role in corporate compliance. Post-Enron and now post-Madoff, white collar crime cases have earned significant attention with the public and a high priority in law enforcement. The federal government and its law enforcement are willing to bring all available tools to bear on high-level and impactful white collar crimes and offenders. The use of RICO in WCC cases is yet another example.

RICO, a statute forever associated with trageting traditional organized crime, is predicated on a "pattern" of often wide and varied criminal conduct committed through a common enterprise or association of individuals. Congress, in RICO, listed many white collar offenses as underlying, qualifying offenses. The list includes federal criminal law's very broad WCC statutes, such as mail and wire fraud, money laudering, and incohate offenses. Federal prosecutors, as a result, may allege RICO violations in most sophisticated whte collar crime cases. This book dicusses the future of WCC allegations and the RICO statute.

This book discusses the history and development of RICO and the key legal concepts and important elements of RICO criminal offenses, particularly in the WCC context. such as "pattern" of conduct, "enterprise," "predicate offenses" and "RICO conspiracy." This book also discusses the applicable predicate crimes in WCC cases, civil liability and parallel proceedings in RICO cases. Lastly, this book covers other offenses under RICO, double jeopardy, statute of limitations, estoppel, and extraterritoriality, as well as issues at trial and sentencing in a RICO case.

Keywords: crime, criminal, white collar, RICO, federal crime, federal criminal practice, enterprise, parallel proceedings