Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations ("RICO") Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961-68 (1994)
: The Mafia as a Helpful Context
Although the RICO Act can be used in many contexts, the statute is most easily understood in its intended context: the Mafia. In the context of the Maifa, the defendant person (i.e., the target of the RICO Act) is the Godfather. The "racketeering activity" is the criminal activities in which the Mafia engages, e.g., extortion, bribery, loan sharking, murder, illegal drug sales, prostitution, etc. Because the Mafia family has engaged in these criminal actions for generations, the criminal actions constitute a pattern of racketeering activity. The government can criminally prosecute the Godfather under RICO and send him to jail even if the Godfather has never personally killed, extorted, bribed or engaged in any criminal behavior. The Godfather can be imprisoned because he operated and managed a criminal enterprise that engaged in such acts. Moreover, under section 1964(c) of the RICO Act, the victims of the Mafia family (i.e., the extorted businessman, the employers whose employees were bribed, debtors of the loan shark, the family of a murder victim) can sue the Godfather civilly and recover the economic losses they sustained by reason of the Mafia family's pattern of racketeering.
As a practical matter, the closer a plaintiff's case is to the Mafia scenario described above, the better chance the plaintiff has in succeeding under the RICO Act. Given the diverse factual scenarios that may confront attorneys and parties under RICO, it is always helpful to analogize non-Mafia factual scenarios to the prototypical RICO claim against the Mafia. It is always helpful to ask: who stands in the position of the Godfather, i.e., the defendant person? What is the equivalent of the Mafia family, i.e., the enterprise? This will give you a good start in evaluating the merits of any RICO claim you confront. If the facts are well-suited to the Mafia analogy, you likely have a stronger claim.
Bradley v Massad RICO
Bradley v Massad RICO part 2
