Applicable Legal Standards

Applicable Legal Standards

¶Defendants formed a RICO Enterprise, comprised of a group of business entities and individuals associated-in-fact, including Defendants to this action, their agents and employees, and other organizations and individuals.

¶The RICO statute provides that an "'enterprise' includes any individual, partnership, corporation, association, or other legal entity, and any union or group of individuals associated in fact although not a legal entity."¹⁸¹⁸ Defendants assert that the statements of their C.E.O.s before the Waxman Subcommittee in 1994 constitutes petitioning activity protected from any imposition of liability under the Noerr-Pennington doctrine. See, Eastern R.R. Presidents Conference v. Noerr Motor Freight, Inc., 365 U.S. 127 (1961) and United Mine Workers v. Pennington, 381 U.S. 657 (1965). This legal issue is addressed fully in the Conclusions of Law. The facts, as recounted herein, speak for themselves. -637-Show full note U.S.C. § 1961(4). The Supreme Court has held that an enterprise "is proved by evidence of an ongoing organization, formal or informal, and by evidence that the various associates function as a continuing unit." United States v. Turkette, 452 U.S. 576, 583 (1981). In accordance with Turkette, the Court of Appeals for this Circuit has consistently held that an association-in-fact "enterprise is established by (1) a common purpose among the participants, (2) organization, and (3) continuity," and that the enterprise need only involve "some structure, to distinguish an enterprise from a mere conspiracy." United States v. Richardson, 167 F.3d 621, 625 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (citations omitted); accord United States v. White, 116 F.3d 903, 924 & 925 n.7 (D.C. Cir. 1997); United States v. Perholtz, 842 F.2d 343, 362-63 (D.C. Cir. 1988). As our Circuit further explained: "It is not necessary that the enterprise . . . have any particular or formal structure but it must have sufficient organization that its members function and operated together in a coordinated manner in order to carry out the common purpose alleged." Perholtz, 842 F.2d at 364.

¶Establishing that the members of the enterprise operated together in a coordinated manner in furtherance of a common purpose may be proven by a wide variety of direct and circumstantial evidence including, but not limited to: inferences from the members' commission of similar racketeering acts in furtherance of a shared objective; financial ties; coordination of activities; a community of interests and objectives; the interlocking nature of the members' schemes; and the overlapping nature of the wrongful conduct. See, e.g., United States v. Owens, 167 F.3d 739, 751 (1st Cir. 1999) (members of drug trafficking enterprise provided other members with financial assistance and coordinated transportation of drugs); Richardson, 167 F.3d at 625 ("Additional evidence of [the enterprise's] organization and continuity comes from the robberies' consistent pattern."); United States v. Davidson, 122 F.3d 531, 535 (8th Cir. 1997); Perholtz, 842 F.2d at 355

¶("The interlocking nature of the schemes and the overlapping nature of the wrongdoing provides sufficient evidence for the jury to conclude that this was a single enterprise."); United States v. Qaoud, 777 F.2d 1105, 1116-17 (6th Cir. 1985) (jury could have inferred the existence of the alleged association-in-fact enterprise from the "coordinated nature of the defendants' activity" and that the defendants' racketeering acts were facilitated by their nexus to the enterprise); United States v. Griffin, 660 F.2d 996, 1000 (4th Cir. 1981); United States v. Elliott, 571 F.2d 880, 898 (5th Cir. 1978) (jury entitled to infer existence of enterprise from circumstantial evidence).

¶"It is not essential that each and every person named [as a member of the enterprise] be proven to be a part of the enterprise. The enterprise may exist even if its membership changes over time . . . or if certain defendants are found by the [fact finder] not to have been members at any time." Perholtz, 842 F.2d at 364. Likewise, it is not necessary to prove "that every member of the enterprise participated in or knew about all its activities." United States v. Cagnina, 697 F.2d 915, 922 (11th Cir. 1983); see also United States v. Rastelli, 870 F.2d 822, 827-28 (2d Cir. 1989).

¶This Court has already held, consistent with the law of this Circuit, that a RICO enterprise may consist of "a group of individual[s], partnerships, and corporations associated in fact," United States v. Philip Morris Inc., 116 F. Supp. 2d at 152 (quoting Perholtz, 842 F.2d at 351, n.12). In Perholtz itself, the D.C. Circuit held that RICO's definition of "enterprise" includes an association- in-fact of corporations, legal entities and individuals. 842 F.2d at 352-53.