Ciminelli, Percoco, Varsity Blues, and the Future of Fraud and Bribery Prosecution | ABA White Collar Crime 2024

Tom Hanusik will serve as a panelist at the ABA White Collar Crime Institute Conference alongside Jonathan S. Sack of Sack & Sack (Moderator), Temidayo Aganga-Williams of Selendy Gay Elsberg PLLC, David Angeli of Angeli Law Group LLC, Lorin L. Reisner of Paul Weiss, David Saratt of Debevoise & Plimpton and Brent Wible, Office of the Assistant Attorney General at U.S. Department of Justice, Criminal Division.

On this panel, panelists will discuss the Supreme Court's decision on two important mail/wire fraud cases last term: Ciminelli v. United States and Percoco v. United States. In Ciminelli, it invalidated the “right to control” theory of mail/wire fraud, and in Percoco, it narrowed the scope of public sector honest services fraud. In the high-profile “Varsity Blues” prosecution (United States v. Abdelaziz), the First Circuit set aside fraud and bribery charges in the context of private universities. This panel will discuss the background and impact of these decisions, including how the Supreme Court’s approach to interpreting white-collar criminal statutes affects federal fraud and corruption prosecutions going forward.