RICO Act

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, typically called RICO Act or RICO, is a United States federal law. The RICO Act is categorized as Chapter 96 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code. This act was formed on October 15, 1970 and signed into law by President Richard Nixon. The purpose of the law was to control organized crimes in the United States. Under this law, which deals with federal crimes and criminal procedures, it also permits prosecution and civil penalties for organized crime activities. This Act was designed and expected to be used against the Mafia but now it has included organized crimes. According the federal law, organized crime is defined as any activity or threat involving illegal gambling, money laundering, embezzlement,
bribery, kidnapping, murder, counterfeiting, arson, robbery, extortion, drug trafficking, human trafficking and a multitude of revolting business practices. These activities are criminal, under State Law, and are prosecutable by imprisonment for more than one year. To convict a person under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the government must prove that the defendant was involved in two or more racketeering activities. The government must also prove that the defendant was directly involved in the crime, or contributed in a criminal enterprise affecting interstate or foreign commerce.
The RICO Act was produced in part of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970. The Act was in the making in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s and the main reasoning behind the Act was to prohibit the use of illegal gambling organizations. This Act was created mainly to dismantle the Mafia but as time moved along it included other organized crimes as mentioned before.
Before the RICO Act was passed, it was difficult for Prosecutors to indict the leaders in these organized crimes.
The person who had to pay for the crime was the defendant who actually performed the illegal activities as the law did not allow other people to be punished. When Congress passed the RICO Act in 1970, the prosecutors were able to have the fighting tool that enabled them to dismantle the organized crimes which were led by the mastermind. Prosecutors had to prove two illegal activities which will assist in bringing these leaders or masterminds to justice. The first was “The defendant must own and/or manage and organization; and the organization must regularly perform one or more specific illegal activity,”
(findlaw.com).
In the state of Florida, a famous televised arrest for the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act was Scott Rothstein.
“On November 10, 2009, four creditors of a Miami, Florida, law firm of seventy attorneys, Rothstein, Rosenfeldt and Adler P.A. (“RRA”), petitioned the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida to reorganize the law firm under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code. Two weeks later, the Bankruptcy Court appointed Herbert Stettin trustee of the bankruptcy estate (the “Trustee”). On December 1, 2009, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida filed a five-count information charging Scott Rothstein, “a shareholder, Chairman and CEO of RRA,” with conspiring to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”), 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c), by employing RRA to engage in a pattern of racketeering activity, principally mail and wire fraud and money laundering, and with conspiring to commit those substantive offenses” 717 F.3d 1205, 1206-07 (11th Cir.
2013).
Under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a defendant can be charged with racketeering which includes illegal drug sales, murder, loan sharking, bribery, extortion and other revolving crimes – if he or she committed two of the twenty-seven federal crimes and eight state crimes that are listed under the United States Legislation within a ten year period. According to wisegeek.com “the law gives the government the power to criminally prosecute and imprison an organized crime leader even if he or she has never personally committed any of the components of racketeering. This is because he or she is part of a criminal enterprise.”
Over a period of time, people who were brought to court on accusations of committing an organized crime would try to cover up evidence that they did in fact break the law. Under the Racketeer Act, once a person is accused, the government has the right to have these assets frozen preventing the criminal from hiding their profits until the case can be solved.
Once the RICO charge has been proved, the punishment for the Organized Crimes can have a person be sentenced to prison for up to twenty years on each count of racketeering. In more severe cases, these crimes can have a punishment of a life sentence. Assets, including anything tied to legitimate businesses that were gained during the time will be forfeited.
What happens to the victims of these Organized Crimes? Under the RICO Act there is a civil section that assists the victims. The family of murdered victims, employers for businesses whose owners took bribes, businessmen who were forced to put their business in jeopardy in order to make money, they are all protected under the Federal Law. These victims can sue the crime organizer for compensations as a result of the racketeering activity. If the defendant is convicted, he or she is responsible to reimburse the victims up to three times the amount for the damages, plus the court costs and if there are any attorney fees. The criminal must also give up any profits that he or she made from any of the organized crimes that the Federal law has listed.
To summarize a person can be charged under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), which was developed as a law in 1970, if they committed two out of the thirty five crimes that are listed under the Federal Law. The state Prosecutor must prove that the person he or she is charging is responsible of the criminal enterprise. All assets that are owned by the mastermind of the organized crime can be frozen until the trial has been completed. All victims and families of the victims can get up to three times the amount of money that was lost during the criminal enterprise.