How much difference is there between fed and state rico?
My husband is currently facing 11 state rico charges in NJ. NJ seems pretty harsh with their rico penalties. The judge has said if my husband were to be found guilty on all 11 charges and given max sentences, it would be 113 years for those 11 charges, which is ridiculous, but that's by the book.
The others that are facing charges along with my husband (the enterprise, as they are referred to), are all going to be on trial at the same time, together, like they want to do with Trump's case.
Also, the way the NJ prosecutor wrote up her one plea offer that they each got, it's contingent on all defendants taking their plea or nobody can. I don't know if that's part of rico or not, or if that will change at any point, but that's how she wrote it up.
Before this, I hadn't even realized rico can be on a state level. "Little RICO" it's sometimes referred to as.
The particulars of "State" RICO laws can, and do, vary from state to state. I'm not sure about the nuances of NJ's RICO law, but, as I've said earlier, the RICO law in some states can actually be harsher for some convictions than the Feds.
As far as facing 113 years in jail. Thats all BS, and just law enforcement's attempt to scare defendants into pleading out. Technically, if the judge went back to back on all counts and "ran em wild" then a guy could get that. (But that never happens Carmela, so don't worry about that.)
And lastly, as to the matter of ALL defendants having to cop a plea, or nobody gets to plea? Thats called a "global plea deal."
The reason why prosecutors will sometimes try and pull that is because they wanna try and quickly "wrap up" the entire case and get done with it. So they pressure defendants who wanna play ball, to pressure their fellow codefendants to cop out also. It's a relatively common government tactic.
Sometimes that sticks. Sometimes the prosecutors soften their position about that....time will tell.
