The first count in the Georgia state indictment charges Donald Trump and 18 others with a crime known as racketeering.for allegedly trying to reverse the result of the 2020 presidential election in that state.
Fani Willis, the Fulton County District Attorney, announced the charges implicating former President Trump in an extensive conspiracy to subvert the election and names him as the ringleader.
“The indictment alleges that instead of following the legal process to contest an election, the defendants undertook a criminal initiative and racketeering to reverse the Georgia election results.“, he claimed.
This is the fourth series of criminal charges brought against Trump in recent months, but the first time a former US president has faced charges brought in the past to convict mob bosses like John Gotti and Vincent Gigante.
In the US, organized crime activities are routinely prosecuted under the so-called Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
The RICO law allows prosecutors to connect the dots between the law-breaking junior henchmen and the masterminds who gave them the order to act.
More than 30 states in the US have implemented their own versions of the federal RICO law, and the model adopted by Georgia is broader in scope than most.
The federal RICO statutes list 35 crimes that can be classified as evidence of racketeering or extortion, but Georgia’s RICO laws list 65 crimes.
Prosecutors must prove that a criminal “enterprise” exists and detail an extortion pattern that is based on at least two qualifying crimes.
Penalties under Georgia’s RICO law are severe — jail terms of between five and 20 years, or fines of up to $250,000 — and can be used to persuade underlings to plead plea bargains in exchange for a reduced sentence. .
These incidents can generate an unprecedented wave of evidence and testimony that prosecutors can use against the alleged ringleaders.according to Anthony Michael Kreis, a professor of law at Georgia State University.
To convict Trump himself, Kreis explained that prosecutors will need to show that the former president was not “just a passive participant” following legal advice, but rather the man “driving the bus.”
Trump is already facing federal charges brought by the US Department of Justice for his false claims regarding the election, in a trial whose evidence would factor in, and overlap with, the Georgia case.
A trial is also pending over the alleged negligent handling of classified documents and payments to a pornographic actress to silence her testimony.
A prosecutor ‘fanatic’ of the RICO law
District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat, has made use of Georgia’s anti-extortion laws in high-profile prosecutions in the past.
In 2013, he led the prosecution’s RICO case against Atlanta public school teachers and administrators accused of cheating on state standardized tests to get bonuses and promotions.
“According to RICO, they don’t all have to sit at one table eating spaghetti (and conspiring)”, Willis explained when he accused almost three dozen teachers a decade ago.
“But what you have to do is that with everyone you are doing the same thing with the same purpose. They all have to be working towards the same goal.”
Eleven of 12 officials were convicted in a trial, the longest in state history, with most of the other accomplices pleading guilty.
Last year, Willis used RICO statutes again to argue that award-winning rapper Young Thug and 27 associates of his YSL record label were a “criminal street gang.”
“The reason I’m a RICO fan is because I think the jury is very, very smart.”he expressed in a press conference when he announced the charges.
“They want to know what happened. They want to be able to make an accurate decision about someone’s life. So RICO is a tool that allows the prosecution and the authorities to tell the whole story.”
Long and troublesome case
But this trial, which was scheduled to begin last January, has been eight months into a slow jury selection process, with thousands of people being cleared and not a single jury chosen.
That has left Young Thug waiting behind bars for 15 months, while a handful of his implicated YSL associates cut deals in exchange for pleading guilty or having their cases dropped from trial.
“I hope that Fani Willis has learned from this YSL case when Donald Trump’s case reaches that instance.said Keisha Steed, a defense attorney in Atlanta. “The way it is developing is a disaster!”
The attorney said Willis’s office did not seem “prepared for the number of jurors that had to be called, the logistics of having them all in one place, the time it takes for attorneys to question jurors.”
The laborious timing of the Young Thug trial has put it on the brink of breaking the record set by the Atlanta teachers’ trial as the longest in the state’s history.
That’s not unusual to happen in RICO cases involving multiple defendants and multiple attorneys, which can create a huge bottleneck in the legal system.
“The entire courthouse is basically closed,” said Meg Strickler, another local defense attorney.
“I hate the RICO law,” he added, saying that clients are often intimidated by the penalties they would face and the time and money required to defend themselves.
And, given how long and complicated RICO trials are, she believes the Trump process will prove a confusing and uncomfortable affair for a jury, if one can ultimately be selected.
“Jurors are going to fall asleep long before they can figure it out,” Strickler predicted.
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BBC-NEWS-SRC: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/articles/c06ek3ylngdo, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-08-15 23:50:08
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