- Rudy Giuliani made his career using RICO to go after the mob when he was a US Attorney.
- Now, he’s been indicted on RICO charges himself by the Fulton County DA’s office.
- Giuliani was charged in connection to his efforts to help Trump overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.
A former US attorney who made his name using RICO to prosecute organized crime was just indicted on RICO charges.
That’s Rudy Giuliani, who spearheaded the Manhattan US attorney’s office in the 1980s before going on to serve as the mayor of New York City.
Late Monday, a Georgia grand jury voted to indict Giuliani on a number of criminal charges, including violating the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization statute.
It’s a remarkable twist for the former mayor, who pioneered the use of RICO laws to go after the mob in New York — an accomplishment he touts to this day.
“Giuliani is objectively one of the most effective prosecutors in American history who took down the Mafia, cleaned up New York City and comforted the nation following 9/11,” his spokesperson, Ted Goodman, told reporters as recently as last month.
Now, Giuliani is accused of breaking the same racketeering laws that he aggressively employed against the mafia.
The former mayor was one of 19 defendants — including former President Donald Trump — who were indicted by Fulton County DA Fani Willis’ office in connection to Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. All the defendants were charged with violating Georgia’s RICO statute.
Trump, Giuliani, their co-defendants, 30 unindicted co-conspirators, and “others known and unknown” to the grand jury “constituted a criminal organization whose members and associates engaged in various related criminal activities including, but not limited to, false statements and writings, impersonating a public officer, forgery, filing false documents, influencing witnesses, computer theft, computer trespass, computer invasion of privacy, conspiracy to defraud the state, acts involving theft, and perjury,” the indictment said.
Giuliani, specifically, was charged with solicitation of violation of oath by public officer, false statements and writings, conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer, conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree, conspiracy to commit false statements and writings, and conspiracy to commit filing false documents.
Giuliani’s indictment was not entirely unexpected; prosecutors working for Willis informed him that he was a target of their wide-ranging inquiry earlier this month, and Willis also has a long history of using RICO in a slew of previous cases.
Others who were charged on Monday include former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark, the GOP lawyers Sidney Powell, John Eastman, and Kenneth Chesebro, and more.
Insider has reached out to Giuliani’s spokesperson for comment.
Read the original article on Business Insider
