{ "id": "R41931", "type": "CRS Report", "typeId": "REPORTS", "number": "R41931", "active": true, "source": "EveryCRSReport.com, University of North Texas Libraries Government Documents Department", "versions": [ { "source": "EveryCRSReport.com", "id": 591050, "date": "2019-02-11", "retrieved": "2019-12-20T20:01:08.056597", "title": "Mail and Wire Fraud: An Abbreviated Overview of Federal Criminal Law", "summary": "The mail and wire fraud statutes are exceptionally broad. Their scope has occasionally given the courts pause. Nevertheless, prosecutions in their name have brought to an end schemes that have bilked victims out of millions, and sometimes billions, of dollars. The statutes proscribe (1) causing the use of the mail or wire communications, including email; (2) in conjunction with a scheme to intentionally defraud another of money or property; (3) by means of a material deception. The offenses, along with attempts or conspiracies to commit them, carry a term of imprisonment of up to 30 years in some cases, followed by a term of supervised release. Offenders also face the prospect of fines, orders to make restitution, and forfeiture of their property.\nThe mail and wire fraud statutes overlap with a surprising number of other federal criminal statutes. Conduct that supports a prosecution under the mail or wire fraud statutes will often support prosecution under one or more other criminal provision(s). These companion offenses include (1) those that use mail or wire fraud as an element of a separate offense, like racketeering or money laundering; (2) those that condemn fraud on some jurisdictional basis other than use of the mail or wire communications, like those that outlaw defrauding the federal government or federally insured banks; and (3) those that proscribe other deprivations of honest services (i.e., bribery and kickbacks), like the statutes that ban bribery of federal officials or in connection with federal programs.\nAmong the crimes for which mail or wire fraud may serve as an element, RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) outlaws employing the patterned commission of predicate offenses to conduct the affairs of an enterprise that impacts commerce. Money laundering consists of transactions involving the proceeds of a predicate offense in order to launder them or to promote further predicate offenses.\nThe statutes that prohibit fraud in some form or another are the most diverse of the mail and wire fraud companions. Congress modeled some after the mail and wire fraud statutes, incorporating elements of a scheme to defraud or obtain property by false pretenses into statutes that outlaw bank fraud, health care fraud, securities fraud, and foreign labor contracting fraud. Congress designed others to protect the public fisc by proscribing false claims against the United States, conspiracies to defraud the United States by obstructing its functions, and false statements in matters within the jurisdiction of the United States and its departments and agencies. \nFederal bribery and kickback statutes populate the third class of wire and mail fraud companions. One provision bans offering or accepting a thing of value in exchange for the performance or forbearance of a federal official act. Another condemns bribery of faithless agents in connection with federally funded programs and activities. A third, the Hobbs Act, outlaws bribery as a form of extortion under the color of official right.\nThe fines, prison sentences, and other consequences that follow conviction for wire and mail fraud companions vary considerably, with fines from not more than $25,000 to not more than $2 million and prison terms from not more than five years to life.", "type": "CRS Report", "typeId": "REPORTS", "active": true, "formats": [ { "format": "HTML", "encoding": "utf-8", "url": "https://www.crs.gov/Reports/R41931", "sha1": "39725caab7c7908ca6e7afecd83679148d668640", "filename": "files/20190211_R41931_39725caab7c7908ca6e7afecd83679148d668640.html", "images": {} }, { "format": "PDF", "encoding": null, "url": "https://www.crs.gov/Reports/pdf/R41931", "sha1": "48067b3126e01e0e6280a0dfe883a902389d224f", "filename": "files/20190211_R41931_48067b3126e01e0e6280a0dfe883a902389d224f.pdf", "images": {} } ], "topics": [] }, { "source": "EveryCRSReport.com", "id": 433286, "date": "2014-08-06", "retrieved": "2016-04-06T20:12:26.394385", "title": "Mail and Wire Fraud: An Abridged Overview of Federal Criminal Law", "summary": "It is a federal crime to devise a scheme to defraud another of property, when either mail or wire communications are used in furtherance of the scheme, 18 U.S.C. 1341, 1343. Mail or wire fraud includes schemes to defraud another of honest services, when the scheme involves bribery or a kick back, 18 U.S.C. 1346; Skilling v. United States, 130 S.Ct. 2896 (2010). In order to convict, the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant (1) used either mail or wire communications in the foreseeable furtherance, (2) of a scheme to defraud, (3) involving a material deception, (4) with the intent to deprive another of, (5) either property or honest services.\nOffenders face the prospect of imprisonment for not more than 20 years, a fine of not more than $250,000 (not more than $500,000 for organizations), an order to pay victim restitution, and the confiscation of any property realized from the offense.\nMisconduct that constitutes mail or wire fraud may also constitute a violation of one or more other federal crimes. Principal among these are predicate offense crimes, frauds based on jurisdictional factors other than use of mail or wire communications, and other honest services frauds in the form of bribery or kickbacks. The other federal bribery and kickback offenses include bribery of public officials, federal program bribery, extortion under color of official right, and Medicare/Medicaid kickbacks. Mail and wire fraud are money laundering and racketeering predicate offenses. Numbered among the fraud offenses based on other jurisdiction grounds are the false claims and false statement offenses, bank fraud, health care fraud, securities fraud, and foreign labor contracting fraud.\nThis is an abridged version of CRS Report R41930, Mail and Wire Fraud: A Brief Overview of Federal Criminal Law, by Charles Doyle, without the footnotes, appendix, quotation marks, or citations to authority found in the longer version. Related CRS reports include CRS Report R40852, Deprivation of Honest Services as a Basis for Federal Mail and Wire Fraud Convictions, by Charles Doyle.", "type": "CRS Report", "typeId": "REPORTS", "active": true, "formats": [ { "format": "HTML", "encoding": "utf-8", "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/R41931", "sha1": "c4a3090bdcbd8071f57868748255fd334839b5c2", "filename": "files/20140806_R41931_c4a3090bdcbd8071f57868748255fd334839b5c2.html", "images": null }, { "format": "PDF", "encoding": null, "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/pdf/R41931", "sha1": "3f8ab042569737f8142c0f46ab117fd8d10bdf57", "filename": "files/20140806_R41931_3f8ab042569737f8142c0f46ab117fd8d10bdf57.pdf", "images": null } ], "topics": [] }, { "source": "University of North Texas Libraries Government Documents Department", "sourceLink": "https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc96710/", "id": "R41931_2011Jul21", "date": "2011-07-21", "retrieved": "2012-08-07T13:52:45", "title": "Mail and Wire Fraud: An Abridged Overview of Federal Criminal Law", "summary": "This report discusses ways in which mail and wire fraud can be federal crimes and penalties for conducting such crimes. It is a federal crime to devise a scheme to defraud another of property, when either mail or wire communications are used in furtherance of the scheme. Misconduct that constitutes mail or wire fraud may also constitute a violation of one or more other federal crimes.", "type": "CRS Report", "typeId": "REPORT", "active": false, "formats": [ { "format": "PDF", "filename": "files/20110721_R41931_6f32329f1e9ec993feefd630a7d67ecf9af89185.pdf" }, { "format": "HTML", "filename": "files/20110721_R41931_6f32329f1e9ec993feefd630a7d67ecf9af89185.html" } ], "topics": [ { "source": "LIV", "id": "Postal crimes", "name": "Postal crimes" }, { "source": "LIV", "id": "Fraud", "name": "Fraud" }, { "source": "LIV", "id": "Crime and criminals", "name": "Crime and criminals" } ] } ], "topics": [ "American Law" ] }