The Supreme Court's recent decisions in Skilling v. United States, Black v. United States, and Weyhrauch v. United States, aim to clarify the confusion surrounding the honest services fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1346. Using Skilling as its primary vehicle, the Court surveyed the honest services landscape from the pre-McNally era through the present, ultimately holding that Section 1346 criminalizes only schemes to defraud that involve bribes or kickbacks. In limiting the construction of Section 1346, the Court expressly rejected the government's argument that the statute applies to non-disclosure cases, i.e., undisclosed self-dealing by public officials or private employees -- a holding that seems likely to affect prior convictions predicated on the honest services theory. The holding is also certain to impact future charging decisions by prosecutors in fraud cases.
In this teleconference, our panel will discuss the reach and probable impact of the Skilling, Black, and Weyhrauch decisions on past and future honest services fraud prosecutions. Our panel includes attorneys who have been involved in honest services cases relating to defendants in both the private and public contexts and who have litigated issues relating to the honest services statute in federal district and appeals courts and in the Supreme Court. The teleconference will consider how the courts are likely to view convictions obtained under the honest services fraud statute in light of the decisions and what theories prosecutors are likely to use in the future in addressing non-disclosure fraud cases. These and other related subjects will be discussed.
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