Record
Court opinion
1983-11-01
CourtListener (Free Law Project), text of the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States
Russello v. United States, 464 U.S. 16 (1983)
Supreme Court decision of November 1, 1983 holding that the "interests" subject to forfeiture under the 1970 text of RICO's section 1963(a)(1) include profits and proceeds of racketeering, not only interests in an enterprise.
- Date
- 1983-11-01
- Kind
- court-opinion
- Source
- CourtListener (Free Law Project), text of the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States
- Retrieved
- 2026-10-12
- Docket
- 464 U.S. 16 (1983), No. 82-472
- Rights
- Opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, a federal work in the public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. CourtListener (Free Law Project) hosts the text; it is not the source institution.
Decided November 1, 1983; No. 82-472. Russello was convicted of racketeering, conspiracy and mail fraud arising from an arson-for-insurance scheme, and the jury returned special verdicts forfeiting insurance proceeds under 18 U.S.C. 1963(a)(1).
The Court affirmed the Fifth Circuit: “We hold simply that the “interests” subject to forfeiture under § 1963(a)(1) are not limited to interests in an enterprise.” (464 U.S. at 29.)
The case concerned the 1970 text of section 1963. The next year Congress rewrote section 1963 in the Comprehensive Forfeiture Act of 1984, filed separately, which expressly lists property derived from proceeds of racketeering activity. The facts involve insurance fraud, not a named crime family.