What is racketeering? Why Donald Trump has been charged with organised crime law in Georgia
Former US president Donald Trump was hit with a fourth set of criminal charges on Monday when a Georgia grand jury issued an indictment accusing him of efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.
The charges, brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, add to the legal woes facing Mr Trump, the front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election.
In the sprawling 98-page indictment, 19 defendants and 41 criminal counts were listed. All of the defendants were charged with racketeering, which is used to target members of organised crime groups and carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.
What is Trump charged with?
Prosecutors brought 13 counts against Mr Trump including forgery and racketeering, using laws used to target members of organised crime groups, including the Mafia.
Organised crime in the US can be prosecuted under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations (Rico) Act.
But Mr Trump’s latest indictment marks the first time a former American president faces charges under the same law once used to convict Mob bosses like John Gotti and Vincent Gigante.
The 97-page indictment describes Mr Trump and his associates as members of a “criminal organisation” who were part of an “enterprise” that operated in Georgia and other states.
Mr Trump is accused of violating Georgia’s racketeering act, solicitation of violation of oath by public officer, conspiracy to impersonate a public officer, conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree and false statements and writings and filing false documents.
What is Rico?
US lawmakers passed the federal Rico Act in 1970 to battle organised crime, notably the Mafia. Most states enacted similar laws with various twists.
The main requirements under the federal Rico law are at least two underlying crimes and participation in a criminal enterprise over a long period of time.
Georgia’s Rico law does not require criminal enterprises to be long running and lists nearly 50 underlying crimes that qualify as racketeering, compared with 35 under its federal counterpart.
Defendants who are found guilty of Georgia Rico charges face between five and 20 years in prison, and while federal law has the same maximum, it does not have a minimum.
Why has Rico been used to charge Mr Trump?
Rico was originally conceived to take down Mafia kingpins who kept their hands clean by parking ill-gotten gains in shell corporations and leaving the dirty work to underlings.
The Mafia in the US has largely been dismantled, and Rico’s application has been broadened to many other types of organised criminal activity.
Prosecutors have applied the law to all sorts of groups that they characterise as criminal “enterprises”, including Wall Street banks and traders engaged in market manipulation.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, an elected Democrat who brought the charges against Mr Trump, once used the law to prosecute more than two dozen Atlanta educators for allegedly scheming to cheat on test scores in 2014.
The law does not require prosecutors to prove that defendants directly engaged in criminal activity, just that they were part of a larger organisation that did.
That means prosecutors would not necessarily have to prove Mr Trump personally broke the law but knowingly co-ordinated with others who did.
What Does Georgia’s Rico law say?
Georgia’s Rico Act, adopted in 1980, makes it a crime to participate in, acquire or maintain control of an “enterprise” through a “pattern of racketeering activity” or to conspire to do so.
An “enterprise” can be a single person or a group of associated individuals with a common goal. “Racketeering activity” means to commit or attempt to commit one of more than three dozen state crimes listed in the law.
At least two such acts are required to meet the standard of a “pattern of racketeering activity”, meaning prosecutors have to prove that a person has engaged in two or more related criminal acts as part of their participation in an enterprise to be convicted under Rico.
The US Supreme Court has said that federal Rico allegations must show a series of related underlying acts over an extended period of time, not just a few weeks or months. But the Georgia Supreme Court has made clear there is no such requirement in the state law.
