10-15-2022, 11:02 AM
If I were to make a guess of what federal offenses are most likely to put a white-collar criminal in federal prison, then I would expect one of mail fraud. wire fraud, or bank fraud, statutes of which are so written that no conflict exists between them. For most who commit a federal crime, the use of mails or wires to solicit or organize a criminal offense or to use the banking system to transmit funds involved in such is the statute on which white-collar crooks get convicted for swindles, forgeries, and embezzlements.
So suppose that I were to sell one of my acrylic paintings with the signature "Henri Matisse". (Matisse did not use acrylic paints). I make it available on line, and someone in Atlanta orders it. By soliciting the sale of an artistic forgery I would have committed wire fraud. By sending the painting by mail or any common carrier I would have committed mail fraud. By putting the funds through a bank account I would have committed bank fraud. The secretive US Postal Inspection Service can and will investigate me on any of these. The conviction rate on these offenses on these is high, and I would be dead meat in a federal criminal court. Most people cooperate with a subpoena if innocent participants
Solicitation of vote fraud by telephone sounds like wire fraud. I suspect that this is the easiest offense for which a conviction can be made. Severest? No, but it would practically be a life sentence for someone in his seventies and in poor shape. The easiest felony conviction allows other convictions to be pressed.
So suppose that I were to sell one of my acrylic paintings with the signature "Henri Matisse". (Matisse did not use acrylic paints). I make it available on line, and someone in Atlanta orders it. By soliciting the sale of an artistic forgery I would have committed wire fraud. By sending the painting by mail or any common carrier I would have committed mail fraud. By putting the funds through a bank account I would have committed bank fraud. The secretive US Postal Inspection Service can and will investigate me on any of these. The conviction rate on these offenses on these is high, and I would be dead meat in a federal criminal court. Most people cooperate with a subpoena if innocent participants
Solicitation of vote fraud by telephone sounds like wire fraud. I suspect that this is the easiest offense for which a conviction can be made. Severest? No, but it would practically be a life sentence for someone in his seventies and in poor shape. The easiest felony conviction allows other convictions to be pressed.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.