polarice said:
Rico, She's not a federal prosecutor? Am I just dense
I think that it can be used in civil cases, too.
I read an article a couple years or so ago that was written by a lawyer who, if I remember correctly, thinks that the only reason to allege a RICO offense is for publicity. I think it was on Popehat.
Ahhh. Searching for popehat rico found this real easily. Turns out it was from 2016.
https://www.popehat.com/2016/06/14/lawsplainer-its-not-rico-dammit/Quote:
RICO is a really complicated racketeering law that has elaborate requirements that are difficult to meet. It's overused by idiot plaintiff lawyers, and it's ludicrously overused by a hundred million jackasses on the internet with an opinion and a mood disorder.
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Do people on the Internet use "RICO" to sound tough. Do lawyers overuse it too?
Oh hell yes. And judges hate it. It's overcomplicated and most of the time it adds nothing to the case.
It's so overused especially by crazy pro se plaintiffs and so needless that a lot of federal judges have special RICO orders they issue in RICO cases demanding that the plaintiff explain, in painful detail, why they think they have a RICO claim. Like this one, for instance. Judges issue them automatically as soon as a RICO case hits their docket to gather information to dismiss the case because it's not ****ing RICO you idiot.
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To win, a plaintiff would have to prove (1) conduct, (2) of an enterprise, (3) through a pattern, (4) of racketeering activity called "predicate acts," (5) causing injury to the plaintiff's "business or property."
Each of those terms means something complicated each term is a gateway to a whole bunch of other issues.
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It's really difficult even to allege it right in a complaint. RICO claims usually generate a series of motions to dismiss. That's why judges often have standing orders requiring plaintiffs to explain how and why they are claiming RICO that's something judges don't do for almost any other cause of action. Most of the time, if a civil plaintiff can prove RICO, they can much more easily prove fraud or other more straightforward claims.
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But mostly I think it's a scare tactic and a propaganda tool, as its idiotic rhetorical misuse suggests. Lawyers bring RICO claims so they can say "the defendant's behavior is so criminal that we sued them for RICO!" Dupes play along by describing RICO claims as "charges," and generally by acting like a RICO claim suggests that there's already been a finding that someone did something wrong.
It doesn't mean that. A RICO claim just means someone wrote down a RICO claim and filed it. Even if the RICO claim survives a motion to dismiss, that just means that a plaintiff was able to allege a complex set of facts in a convoluted way. It doesn't mean those facts are true.
Read the whole article at the link. It is worth the effort.