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The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly referred to as the RICO Act or simply RICO, is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization. The RICO Act focuses specifically on racketeering, and it allows the ''leaders'' of a syndicate to be tried for the crimes which they ''ordered'' others to do or assisted them in doing, closing a perceived loophole that allowed a person who instructed someone else to, for example, murder, to be exempt from the trial because he did not actually commit the crime personally.〔18 U.S. Code § 1962(c); see also (Criminal RICO Prosecutors Manual ), elaborating that "A Defendant May Be Liable for a RICO Conspiracy Offense Even if the Defendant Did Not Participate In the Operation or Management of the Enterprise"〕 RICO was enacted by section 901(a) of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 (), and is codified at as . G. Robert Blakey, an adviser to the United States Senate Government Operations Committee, drafted the law under the close supervision of the committee's chairman, Senator John Little McClellan. It was enacted as Title IX of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, and signed into law by Richard M. Nixon. While its original use in the 1970s was to prosecute the Mafia as well as others who were actively engaged in organized crime, its later application has been more widespread. Beginning in 1972, 33 States adopted state RICO laws to be able to prosecute similar conduct. ==Summary== Under RICO, a person who has committed "at least two acts of racketeering activity" drawn from a list of 35 crimes—27 federal crimes and 8 state crimes—within a 10-year period can be charged with racketeering if such acts are related in one of four specified ways to an "enterprise". Those found guilty of racketeering can be fined up to $25,000 and sentenced to 20 years in prison per racketeering count. In addition, the racketeer must forfeit all ill-gotten gains and interest in any business gained through a pattern of "racketeering activity." When the U.S. Attorney decides to indict someone under RICO, he or she has the option of seeking a pre-trial restraining order or injunction to temporarily seize a defendant's assets and prevent the transfer of potentially forfeitable property, as well as require the defendant to put up a performance bond. This provision was placed in the law because the owners of Mafia-related shell corporations often absconded with the assets. An injunction and/or performance bond ensures that there is something to seize in the event of a guilty verdict. In many cases, the threat of a RICO indictment can force defendants to plead guilty to lesser charges, in part because the seizure of assets would make it difficult to pay a defense attorney. Despite its harsh provisions, a RICO-related charge is considered easy to prove in court, as it focuses on patterns of behavior as opposed to criminal acts. RICO also permits a private individual "damaged in his business or property" by a "racketeer" to file a civil suit. The plaintiff must prove the existence of an "enterprise". The defendant(s) are not the enterprise; in other words, the defendant(s) and the enterprise are not one and the same. There must be one of four specified relationships between the defendant(s) and the enterprise: either the defendant(s) invested the proceeds of the pattern of racketeering activity into the enterprise (18 U.S.C. § 1962(a)); or the defendant(s) acquired or maintained an interest in, or control of, the enterprise through the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (b)); or the defendant(s) conducted or participated in the affairs of the enterprise "through" the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (c)); or the defendant(s) conspired to do one of the above (subsection (d)).〔18 USC § 1962.〕 In essence, the enterprise is either the 'prize,' 'instrument,' 'victim,' or 'perpetrator' of the racketeers.〔"As the Supreme Court noted in ''National Organization for Women, Inc. v. Scheidler'', 510 U.S. 249, 259 n.5 (1994), one commentator has used "the terms 'prize,' 'instrument,' 'victim,' and 'perpetrator' to describe the four separate roles the enterprise may play in § 1962." (citing G. Robert Blakey, The RICO Civil Fraud Action in Context: Reflections on Bennett v. Berg, 58 Notre Dame L. Rev. 237, 307-25 (1982). See page 32 of RICO State by State: A Guide to Litigation under the State Racketeering Statutes, John E. Floyd, Section of Antitrust Law, American Bar Association, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 97-70903, ISBN 1-57073-396-1〕 A civil RICO action can be filed in state or federal court. Both the criminal and civil components allow the recovery of treble damages (damages in triple the amount of actual/compensatory damages). Although its primary intent was to deal with organized crime, Blakey said that Congress never intended it to merely apply to the Mob. He once told ''Time,'' "We don't want one set of rules for people whose collars are blue or whose names end in vowels, and another set for those whose collars are white and have Ivy League diplomas."〔 Initially, prosecutors were skeptical of using RICO, mainly because it was unproven. However, during the 1980s and 1990s, federal prosecutors utilized the law to bring charges against several Mafia figures. The first major success was the Mafia Commission Trial, which resulted in several top leaders of New York City's Five Families getting what amounted to life sentences. By the turn of the century, RICO cases resulted in virtually all of the top leaders of the New York Mafia being sent to prison. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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