Record
Court opinion
1979-10-30
CourtListener (Free Law Project), text of the opinion
United States v. Aleman, 609 F.2d 298 (7th Cir. 1979)
The Seventh Circuit upheld the use of RICO against a ring of home burglars led by Harry Aleman, rejecting the argument that the statute reaches only organized crime's infiltration of legitimate business. It called the enterprise 'a small business' of which 'Aleman was the proprietor.'
- Date
- 1979-10-30
- Kind
- court-opinion
- Retrieved
- 2026-10-12
- Docket
- 609 F.2d 298 (7th Cir. 1979); Nos. 78-1782, 78-1783
- Rights
- Opinion of a United States court. Works of the federal judiciary are in the public domain in the United States. The text was read on CourtListener.
United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, October 30, 1979, Judge Wood writing, with a dissent by Judge Swygert. The appellants were Harry Aleman and Leonard Foresta.
The defendants argued that the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act could not be applied “to a series of burglaries committed in two states by defendants who are not shown to be members of ‘organized crime,’” because the Act was aimed at the infiltration of legitimate business. The court rejected that reading. Of the burglary operation it wrote that, so far as the evidence revealed, “it could only be regarded as a small business. Aleman was the proprietor.” It rejected Aleman’s claim that his sentence, “a total of 30 years on all counts,” was excessive.
The phrase “not shown to be members of ‘organized crime’” is the defendants’ description of themselves in their argument, which the court recites; the court made no finding either way about organized-crime membership. This opinion is the first of four Seventh Circuit decisions on Aleman filed here.