Justices Could Tighten Fraud Statute In Ex-Cuomo Aide Case

Types : Bylined Articles

The decades-long tennis match between federal prosecutors and the U.S. Supreme Court over the application of the honest services fraud statute finds the ball back in the Supreme Court’s hands after it granted certiorari on June 30 in the matter of Percoco v. U.S.

Honest services fraud is defined in Title 18 of the U.S. Code, Section 1346, as “a scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.”[1] The federal judiciary has wrestled with the breadth of the honest services fraud theory for nearly 40 years.

Each time the court has imposed guardrails to ensure the law is employed consistently and predictably to conform with due process and other constitutional protections, new issues emerge from cases initiated by creative federal prosecutors pushing its boundaries.

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