All true about RICO, guys.
The real impact of RICO is that, before it was passed, law enforcement had to catch a Mob guy in the act of committing a crime, and get more than one witness to it. RICO made it a crime, punishable by double-digit sentences, to be part of a "criminal conspiracy." "Conspiracy" is very important:" no corroborating witness is required for the government to obtain a conviction. And RICO also eased the burden of proof by simply requiring law enforcement to show that the accused was part of a "pattern" of crimes.
"Corrupt organization" is also very important. That means that if the Mob guy was influencing a labor union (a favorite of Mobs), the union could be characterized as a "corrupt organization."
Two other very important aspects of RICO:
1. A guy who was victimized by the Mob could be considered part of a "corrupt organization" because he "cooperated" with the Mob even though he was forced. So, if you were a degenerate gambler who was into a Mob loan shark for a lot of money that you couldn't pay back; and the Mob guy forced you to "bust out" your business to pay him back; then you could be charged under RICO because your busting out of your business constituted a "corrupt organization." Faced with a double digit sentence, you'd have a big incentive to cooperate with law enforcement against the Mob guy.
2. RICO for the first time specified iron-clad rules for obtaining phone taps and other forms of electronic surveillance that would stand up as evidence in any court of law. Previously, a lot of "bugs" were thrown out by judges as being illegal. Not after RICO, though.
And, yes DMC and DC: it's true that RICO languished for 10 years before Rudy Giuliani, as US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, finally figured out how to use it. He invited Robert Blakely, the lawyer who wrote RICO, to daily brief his investigators and assistant prosecutors on how the law could work. Giuliani, a great fan of the GF Trilogy, called Blakely, "my consigliere." After his huge success in the famous Commission case, prosecutors all over the country figured out that they could heap glory on themselves by using RICO to prosecute the Mob.
The best source on RICO and how it works is Selwyn Raab's "The Five Families," IMO the best Mob book of the last 10 years.


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