3/22/2023 0 Comments Conspire 2015![]() Thus the government had to prove that Ocasio and his co-conspirators “agreed” to commit extortion, which the Hobbs Act defines as “the obtaining property from another.” It is hornbook law that the heart of the crime of conspiracy is “agreement” between the co-conspirators to commit the target offense. The indictment charged that Ocasio, other officers, and the Mejia brothers had all conspired to “unlawfully obtain under color of official right money and other property” from the Mejias and their body shop. The government, however, also charged Ocasio with conspiring to commit Hobbs Act extortion, and the jury convicted him on that count as well. The “agreement,” at the heart of the crime of conspiracy, is the issue here. Thus Ocasio was convicted on three counts of substantive Hobbs Act extortion (which are not at issue here). ![]() Evans (1992), the Court ruled that under this “under color of official right” language, a public official commits “extortion” merely by accepting a bribe in return for some official act (a “quid pro quo” relationship).Įvans produced a somewhat fractured set of opinions, but its overall holding was clear: a public official such as Ocasio commits extortion by accepting a kickback in return for using his official position corruptly. Thus the Hobbs Act also condemns efforts to obtain the property of another person with his “consent” when induced “under color of official right.” In United States v. However, at common law the crime of “extortion” also applied to public officials who sought to collect an unlawful additional “fee” from people needing their public official services. The Hobbs Act is an extortion statute enacted in the 1930s, and it prohibits acts we normally think of as extortion: using threats, violence, or fear to obtain property from another, with the victim’s “consent” induced by the threats, violence, or fear. (And as is often true in such cases, nothing in the record reveals why federal, rather than state, prosecutors handled this case.) Because there is no general federal bribery statute, the government turned to the Hobbs Act and the general federal conspiracy statute. Ocasio was a Baltimore Police Department officer (“BPD”), and along with a number of other officers, he was charged with accepting “kickbacks” from a local auto-body repair shop (owned by the Mejia brothers) in return for “steering” cars involved in traffic accidents to the body shop. United States, set for argument on Tuesday October 6, the defendant was charged with extortion by a public official “under color of official right” – an offense that would more commonly be described as accepting a bribe. ![]() But unless I misunderstand it, the general question is as old as the common law. The Court’s first criminal case of the Term presents a real brain teaser: may a defendant be convicted of conspiracy to commit an offense, when he has the intent necessary to commit the offense but his co-conspirator does not? The case arises in the specific context of the unusual federal Hobbs Act extortion statute, and getting to the specific question initially requires some complex explanation.
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