Yes, the RICO Act was created to prosecute the Mafia and other mobsters

Former President Donald Trump has been indicted in Georgia over his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 general election results in the state. 

The Georgia indictment marks the fourth criminal case brought against Trump. He is facing 13 criminal charges in Georgia, including a violation of the state’s RICO Act. 

Some social media posts claim that the RICO Act was originally created to prosecute mobsters.  

THE QUESTION

Was the RICO Act created to prosecute mobsters?

THE SOURCES

• Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act
• Justia, an online legal database
• Nolo, an online legal database
• The Mob Museum
• Georgia RICO Act
• Flugum Law, LLC, a Georgia-based law firm
• Poole Huffman, LLC, a Georgia-based law firm
• The Church Law Firm, a Georgia-based law firm

THE ANSWER

Yes, the federal RICO Act was created to prosecute mobsters. Some U.S. states, including Georgia, have since passed their own RICO laws based on the federal act. 

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WHAT WE FOUND

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act is a federal law that was designed to prosecute the Mafia and other mobsters involved in organized crime, according to the online legal databases Nolo and Justia.

The federal RICO law was passed in 1970. Prior to that, law enforcement had difficulty going after high-ranking mobsters because they were unlikely to be directly tied to individual crimes. RICO offered an avenue for the government to target the entire criminal enterprise, rather than slowly chipping away at it by arresting individual members.

Rudy Giuliani, who previously served as New York City’s mayor and later became Trump’s personal attorney, is seen as one of the pioneers of the federal RICO law. Giuliani has also been charged with violating Georgia’s RICO Act alongside Trump. 

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In 1983, before Giuliani served as mayor, he became the U.S. attorney for New York’s Southern District and announced that his top priority was defeating organized crime in the state.

Five major Italian American Mafia families lived and operated in New York at the time. Giuliani received permission from the federal government to pursue a case against the so-called Five Families’ national ruling body known as “the Commission,” according to The Mob Museum.

Hundreds of FBI agents and New York police detectives were investigating the Mob by 1984, the museum says.

Giuliani ultimately decided to prosecute leaders of Mob families and their upper-level cohorts under the federal RICO Act for conspiring to commit contract murders, loan sharking, extortion, labor racketeering and drug trafficking. The Mob Museum says this marked the first time that RICO was used to prosecute a major federal case. 

In November 1986, a handful of mobster defendants, including leaders Anthony Salerno, Carmine Persico and Paul Castellano, were convicted and sentenced to 40 to 100 years in prison, according to the museum. 

Now, the government “rarely uses RICO against the Mafia,” Justia says. Prosecutors have since used the law to combat many types of organized crime, including street gangs, cartels and politicians. 

In order to convict someone under the federal RICO law, the government has to prove that person engaged in a pattern of racketeering activity connected to an enterprise. 

The definition of racketeering under RICO is broad, including 35 crimes such as acts or threats of murder, kidnapping, gambling, arson, robbery, bribery and extortion, among others. 

Similarly, an enterprise can include a wide array of groups, including a crime family, corporation or political party, according to Justia. 

How does Georgia’s RICO law differ from the federal RICO Act?

Many U.S. states have adopted their own versions of the RICO law, including Georgia.

Georgia’s RICO Act makes it illegal to participate in, acquire or maintain control of an enterprise through a “pattern of racketeering,” or to conspire to do so.

Though Georgia modeled its law after the federal RICO Act, legal experts say there are some key differences between the two. 

The federal RICO law requires “proof of continuity” – a series of related crimes over a substantial period of time – and an enterprise. Georgia’s law, on the other hand, “can be used to prosecute individuals for low-level schemes that have been active for only a short time,” according to the Georgia-based law firm Flugum Law.

“In Georgia, the state only needs to show two separate acts of racketeering or connected criminal activity in a ten-year period related to a criminal enterprise to charge their case,” the law firm says on its website.

In addition, Georgia’s state law lists well over 40 offenses that constitute racketeering, compared to the federal RICO law’s 35 racketeering offenses.   

A conviction under Georgia’s RICO law carries a sentence of 5 to 20 years, a fine, or both. The judge may fine someone up to three times the amount of money they obtained during the scheme, according to the Georgia-based Church Law Firm. 

Trump dismissed the Georgia indictment as a “witch hunt” in a post on the social media platform Truth Social. 

In a statement provided to the Associated Press, Giuliani called the indictment an “affront to American democracy” and “just the next chapter in a book of lies.”

VERIFY reporter Casey Decker and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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