The Racketeer Influences and Corrupt Organizations Act In 1970, Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (US Code-Title 18), or RICO, to provide a powerful tool in the fight against organized crime. The RICO Act enables persons financially injured by a pattern of criminal activity to bring a RICO claim in state and federal court, and to obtain damages three times the amount of their actual harm, plus attorneys fees and costs (www.ricoact.com). Since the mid-1980’s, the RICO Act has been applied in circumstances that many believe to be beyond the scope of the act. The RICO Act has been used successfully against a number of members of the Mafia. It has also been applied in cases against legitimate business people, including accountants, attorneys, and spouses in divorce cases, and protest organizations. RICO prohibits using money generated by a pattern of racketeering to gain or maintain control over an enterprise, to invest in an enterprise, or to participate in the conduct or affairs of an enterprise (Whitman & Gergacz, 430). Section 1962 of the RICO Act defines a racketeering activity as any act or threat involving murder, kidnapping, gambling, arson, embezzlement, robbery, bribery, extortion, dealing in obscene matter, or dealing in a controlled substance, which is chargeable under State law and punishable by imprisonment for more than one year (www.4law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/1962.text.num). A pattern of racketeering activity may be defined as the commitment of two or more of these violations of the RICO act within a period of ten years. An enterprise can include any individual, partnership, corporation, association, or other legal entity, and any union or group of individuals asso... ... middle of paper ... ...enced and Corrupt Organizations Act has undergone a change. The original purpose of the law was to stop corrupt persons from using a legitimate business as a cover-up for illegal actions, such as gambling or drug trafficking. Over time, it has become more of a tool in civil RICO claims than in criminal cases. The purpose remains the similar though, to keep people from illegally prospering on the misfortune of others. With the advent of civil RICO, private parties have a way of taking action against a business that has wronged them. RICO will likely continue to grow in its uses to achieve justice. Bibliography: Bibliography 1.Douglas Whitman & Charles Gergacz (1994). The Legal and Social Environment of Business, p. 432-438, New York: McGraw Hill, Inc. 2.www.4law.cornell.edu 3.www.lawnewsnetwork.com 4.www.feminist.org 5.www.rico.com
the mafia is powerful, they know how to cover their tracks they are master of manipulation . The mafia were angry at president kennedy in this article published by (anthony and robin ), assassination
Jennings, Marianne M. Business: Its Legal, Ethical, and Global Environment. Mason, Ohio: Cengage Learning, 2008. Print.
Organized crime in the United States keeps the FBI and other law enforcement agencies in a never-ending investigation of criminals suspected of the infiltration of legitimate businesses. A notorious twentieth century organized group was the New England Patriarca Mafia, or N.E.P.M.. Originating in 1915, the N.E.P.M. evolved over the early twentieth century decades, until 1954 when Raymond Loredo Salvatore Patriarca was donned as boss* and promptly began to expand its power. Due to mafia-related language that will be present throughout the paper, a page of definitions is supplied at the end of the paper. Defined words throughout the paper will be noted with an asterisk, “ * ”.
The Payola scandal was characterized as when a producer pays a broadcasting station to play their music. For example, let say you turn on the radio and a popular song is playing, you change the station and listen to a different radio for a while. After a few minutes, you change back to the original radio station you were listening to and the same song is playing. even in today’s. radio playing where often people feel like the radio plays the same five songs over and over. Occurring during the late 1950s, payola was not illegal however, paying commercial broadcasting stations was. It wasn’t until after the trials that payola became a misdemeanor.
The government has since used the RICO act for its intended purposes over the years. The original intent was to bring down members of criminal organizations such as the mafia. It allowed the prosecution to connect incidents to the bosses or leaders behind the original crimes. Throughout our research we went back to how the RICO act came to be and the definitions of some key terminology of the act. The government has been successful in many famous cases over the years by benefiting from the RICO act. The RICO act has also led to some failures and confusion both in civil cases and in prosecution cases. The Hell’s Angels is a great example of the jury not understanding the terminology of an organized crime enterprise. The jury was unable to determine whether or not the prosecution was finding the bikers guilty or the Hell’s Angels enterprise guilty leading to a hung jury. Since, the original act has passed its original purpose the government and civil cases have abused the RICO act beyond it’s intended purposes. What was once a tool in law to aid in the dismantling of criminal organizations has now become an intimidating force which could prevent growth in an industry for fear of the massive fines. Through our research on the subject of Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act we have found the good, the bad, and the grey area. RICO has served its purpose, but like with any good intentioned act it can be mistreated over
Moran, J. J. (2008). Employment law: New challenges in the business environment. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Congress recognized this new problem that criminals encountered and began to enact money-laundering laws aimed at preventing the criminals from accessing these profits. Congress has created a regulatory system that works to identify the point at which criminals try and invest those profits or funnel them through the financial institution. As the black market becomes more profitable, anti-money laundering laws provide a unique alternative to many of the other laws aimed at preventing and punishing crime. Instead of only convicting the drug dealer who stood on the corner, anti-money laundering laws establish liability for anyone who has knowledge of the illicit origin and proceeds to transact with the drug dealer. They aim to take away any ability to use profits and thus any incentive to get involved in profitabl...
The Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as the RICO Act or RICO, is a law passed by the United States Congress in 1970. The RICO Act was used to strengthen the Organized Crime Control Act (OCCA) enacted by Congress in the 1960’s. RICO targeted a long list of racketeering activities being used at the time by members of organized crime groups, which involved mostly mafia or other mob syndicates. The RICO Act provided the government and individuals with a way to pursue criminal or civil actions against individuals of organized crime groups. The RICO Act became an instrumental tool for federal prosecutors, which in most cases helped to dismantle or weaken many organized groups. Federal prosecutors were able to charge all individuals
The Mafia is a secret criminal organization that has great economic and political control over large parts of Sicilian society and operates both criminal and legitimate enterprises in the United States. It is believed to have started during Sicily's late Middle Ages, beginning as separate bonds of strong-arm enforcers hired by local landowners. It eventually evolved into a network of independent groups governing in rural areas. With the Sicilian immigration of the late 19th century, the Mafia began to operate in several large United States cities. During the period of Prohibition it monopolized the trade in bootleg liquor and controlled loan sharking, gambling, and prostitution. Competing Mafia families established mutually recognized territories, reaching agreement by negotiation or by intimidation. By the mid-1930 the Mafia had taken on the institutionalized structure that is now typical of organized crime in the United States.
...rtunately, it was to no avail. The most infamous names in organized crime such as the American Mafia and Al Capone went on to set the precedence for how organized crime was run. Never before had American gangs operated on a national level, never before had crime been thought of as glamorous, and never before had average citizens broken the law daily. The nature of crime is still changing today. Recently, a new type of crime has been flourishing. Cybercrime is silently terrorizing America and has become almost unstoppable. The FBI has been tracking the amount of internet crime in America since 2001. In total , 289,874 internet crime complaints were reported to the FBI in 2012 alone (Annual Reports). The total loss from money from victims is estimated to be $525,441,110.00. $4,672,985.06 of which came from victims of FBI impersonation emails. (Annual Reports)
The Mafia is viewed by many people as a bunch of gangsters like those that they might see on movies such as Goodfellas, The Godfather, or Donnie Brascoe. In all actuality the Mafia represents much more than that, it is an entity within itself. The original Sicilian Mafia was just a group of families controlling certain territories in which they each laid claim to. These families were headed by a dominant male and were usually in competition with other families. The members of these families would engage into various "illegal and legal businesses with each other and outsiders" (Fiorienti and Peltzman 38). In the introduction to The Economics of Organized Crime, Fiorentini and Peltzman claim that between the years of 1860and maybe ranging all the way to 1957, the "Mafia was not a membership organization but a natural outgrowth of culture, politics and law enforcement" (Peltzman 38).
The era of Don Carlo, which lasted from 1957-1976, was enormously prosperous for the Gambino Crime Family. At the beginning of his rule he, and many other crime families, ran into a pretty large roadblock. As Gambino was being sworn in as leader of the Cosa Nostra, President Elect John Fitzgerald Kennedy, a man who had “sworn to destroy people like him and rid the nation of the scourge of organized crime” had also been sworn in”(Davis 87). The Kennedy brothers, with Robert as head of the McClellan Committee, was the first time that the executive branch of the government directly went after organized crime. Before Kennedy, presidents had even been opposed to going after the mob Harry Truman and Eisenhower discouraged hearings like Kefauver’s to proceed. Another huge obstacle to the federal investigation of the Cosa Nostra lay directly at the feet of corrupt FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. He obtusely denied the existence of the Mafia and was reported to call the reports of its existence “baloney” (Davis 87). Eventually, after overwhelming evidence, Hoover was convinced there was a problem and organized crime was the reason for it. President JFK’s brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy instituted the world’s largest attack on organized crime in all of history. He drew up a list of the top targets, forty in all, and went on his way. After the first year of his war on organized crime, Bobby Kennedy indicted 121 mob defendants and had 73 convictions. By 1963 there was 615 indicted and 288 convictions. One of the most long-lasting tactics that were introduced during Kennedy’s campaign, was the use of bugs and other listening devices in the homes, favored clubs, and hideouts of the mobsters. Electronic surveillance was a new resource an...
Some in the business world would argue that the recently intensified sentencing guidelines for white-collar crime provide sufficient punishment for the criminals involved. However, with the increase if the promi...
Business law, likewise regularly known as business law, is made up of standards, statutes, codes and regulations that administer business connections. Those connections could be either business-to-business or business-to-shopper. Where a business has abused business law, and that violation has brought about damage, shoppers, organizations or contenders can record claims against the culpable gathering, or gatherings, in an endeavor to recuperate their misfortunes. Business law blankets a wide mixed bag of unlawful business exercises including antitrust, unreasonable rivalry, out of line business practices and violations of protection. It likewise blankets business, agreement law and, since the ascent of workstation innovation, digital law.
Melvin, S. P. (2011). The legal environment of business: A managerial approach: Theory to practice. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.