## Facts

- Senior officials of the Massachusetts Office of the Commissioner of Probation (OCP) oversaw hiring and promotions from roughly 2000 to 2010.
- The government alleged the officials operated a patronage system that favored applicants supported by state legislators and other politically connected sponsors.
- The alleged quid pro quo was that patronage hires were provided in exchange for legislators’ support of larger OCP budgets and other favorable legislative actions.
- Trial evidence included legislators’ recommendation communications and instances where interview scoring and rankings were altered to select sponsored candidates over more qualified applicants.
- Routine hiring paperwork and correspondence, including offer-related documents sent through the mail, reflected the outcomes of the challenged hiring process.
- The prosecution did not claim legislators received personal bribes; it treated patronage jobs as the “thing of value” and as a basis for both mail fraud and predicate violations of the Massachusetts gratuities statute.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence was sufficient to prove RICO and RICO-conspiracy predicates based on (a) mail fraud and (b) violations of the Massachusetts gratuities statute.
2. Whether patronage hiring, as charged, satisfied the elements of federal mail fraud, including a scheme to obtain money or property and the use of mailings in furtherance of that scheme.
3. Whether the alleged gratuities theory satisfied state-law requirements that a gratuity be linked to a specific official act.

## Decision

- The First Circuit reversed all convictions and directed entry of judgments of acquittal for each defendant.
- The court held the evidence was legally insufficient to establish the charged predicate offenses, so the RICO and RICO-conspiracy convictions necessarily failed.
- On the Massachusetts gratuities theory, the court concluded the proof did not show a required connection between any “thing of value” and a specific, identified official act.
- On mail fraud, the court concluded the government failed to prove a qualifying property-based fraud scheme and failed to show the charged mailings were for the purpose of executing the scheme.
- The court expressed concern about the breadth and use of juror questioning at trial, but did not rest reversal on that ground because the insufficiency required acquittal.

## Legal Principles

- RICO liability requires proof of valid predicate offenses; if the predicate offenses are not established as a matter of law, RICO and RICO-conspiracy convictions cannot stand.
- Under the Massachusetts gratuities statute as construed by state precedent, the government must prove a link between the alleged gratuity and a specific official act; generalized goodwill or indefinite expectations are insufficient.
- Federal mail fraud requires a scheme to obtain “money or property” by false or fraudulent pretenses; unethical conduct and process manipulation alone do not satisfy the statute absent a qualifying property objective.
- For mail fraud, the mailing must be “for the purpose of executing” the scheme; routine or ministerial mailings that merely document completed decisions do not suffice.

## Conclusion

The First Circuit vacated the defendants’ RICO and mail-fraud convictions and ordered acquittals because the government’s patronage-hiring theory failed to prove (1) state-law gratuities tied to specific official acts and (2) a property-based mail-fraud scheme executed through qualifying mailings.


United States v. Tavares, 844 F.3d 46 (1st Cir. 2016)