## Facts

- From about 1991 to 1999, Vincent A. Cianci, Jr. (Mayor of Providence), Frank E. Corrente (Director of Administration), and Richard E. Autiello (towing-association member) were alleged to have used municipal authority to trade government benefits for payments.
- The charged conduct involved using city agencies and officials to provide jobs, contracts, and other municipal favors in exchange for bribes and extortionate payments.
- A superseding indictment charged numerous public-corruption offenses, including RICO conspiracy, substantive RICO, bribery conspiracies (including under 18 U.S.C. § 666), and Hobbs Act extortion/attempted extortion.
- After a joint jury trial, the district court entered judgments of acquittal on eight counts; the jury convicted on eight counts and acquitted on the remainder.
- All three defendants were convicted of RICO conspiracy (18 U.S.C. § 1962(d)); Corrente was also convicted of substantive RICO (18 U.S.C. § 1962(c)), Hobbs Act-related counts, and bribery conspiracy; Autiello was also convicted of bribery conspiracy counts.
- The jury returned “yes” on four of thirty-seven special interrogatories addressing alleged RICO predicate acts, with the remainder answered “no” or left unanswered.

## Issues

1. Whether a municipality and its agencies may be included in an association-in-fact “enterprise” under RICO when corrupt officials control and manipulate governmental operations for unlawful ends.
2. Whether the evidence proved a RICO “pattern of racketeering activity” and sufficient predicate acts to support the RICO convictions, notwithstanding mixed answers on special interrogatories.
3. Whether challenged jury instructions and evidentiary rulings—including admission of taped statements under Fed. R. Evid. 803(3)—required reversal.
4. Whether the district court committed reversible error in Guidelines calculations and related sentencing findings.

## Decision

- The First Circuit largely affirmed the convictions and sentences.
- It held that the evidence supported an association-in-fact RICO enterprise including the defendants, the City of Providence, and municipal agencies and officials because the defendants controlled and used governmental machinery to carry out racketeering.
- It held that the trial record, including proven corrupt schemes over multiple years, sufficiently established relatedness and continuity to show a RICO pattern; the special-interrogatory results did not invalidate the general verdicts.
- It rejected the principal instructional and evidentiary challenges, including objections to admission of recorded statements under Rule 803(3).
- It upheld the sentencing determinations, finding no reversible error in the district court’s factual findings or Guidelines applications.

## Legal Principles

- A governmental entity may be part of an association-in-fact enterprise under RICO when individuals with unlawful objectives control and manipulate the entity’s activities to carry out racketeering.
- For RICO enterprise proof, the government need not show that every component of the enterprise shares an express subjective criminal purpose; functional operation and control in furtherance of racketeering can satisfy the enterprise element.
- A RICO pattern may be established through multiple related public-corruption schemes occurring over time that demonstrate continuity and relatedness; special interrogatory answers do not defeat a general RICO verdict if the verdict and necessary predicate findings are supportable on the record.
- Rule 803(3) permits admission of statements showing a declarant’s then-existing state of mind when offered for that purpose and not simply to prove the truth of past facts remembered or believed; trial courts retain discretion under evidentiary balancing principles.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed the RICO and related public-corruption convictions, holding that municipal bodies can be included in an association-in-fact enterprise when corrupt officials control and use government operations for racketeering, and that the evidence supported a pattern of racketeering despite limited affirmative predicate-act interrogatory findings.


United States v. Cianci, 378 F.3d 71 (1st Cir. 2004)