The Experts below are selected from a list of 327 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Carina Gunnarson - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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United, yet divided: analysing the cohesion of Addiopizzo’s anti-Racketeering campaign in Palermo
Global Crime, 2015Co-Authors: Carina GunnarsonAbstract:This article analyses the cohesion of Addiopizzo’s anti-Racketeering campaign in Palermo, Sicily. By supporting entrepreneurs who refuse to pay for protection and by encouraging consumers to support these companies through their consumer power, Addiopizzo has mobilised about 900 companies and 11,000 citizens. Taking social capital theory as a point of departure, this article explores the values of trust and norms of reciprocity among entrepreneurs who joined Addiopizzo’s anti-Racketeering campaign. In addition, it analyses their solidarity with colleagues who are victims of extortion. Shared values express a stronger commitment to a movement, reinforce internal solidarity, strengthen the collective identity and reduce the risk of free riders and dropouts. The article reveals not only similarities but also important differences between various groups of joiners. The analysis builds on a unique data-set consisting of questionnaires collected from 277 entrepreneurs who joined the campaign between 2005 and 2011.
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united yet divided analysing the cohesion of addiopizzo s anti Racketeering campaign in palermo
Global Crime, 2015Co-Authors: Carina GunnarsonAbstract:This article analyses the cohesion of Addiopizzo’s anti-Racketeering campaign in Palermo, Sicily. By supporting entrepreneurs who refuse to pay for protection and by encouraging consumers to support these companies through their consumer power, Addiopizzo has mobilised about 900 companies and 11,000 citizens. Taking social capital theory as a point of departure, this article explores the values of trust and norms of reciprocity among entrepreneurs who joined Addiopizzo’s anti-Racketeering campaign. In addition, it analyses their solidarity with colleagues who are victims of extortion. Shared values express a stronger commitment to a movement, reinforce internal solidarity, strengthen the collective identity and reduce the risk of free riders and dropouts. The article reveals not only similarities but also important differences between various groups of joiners. The analysis builds on a unique data-set consisting of questionnaires collected from 277 entrepreneurs who joined the campaign between 2005 and 2011.
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Changing the game: Addiopizzo's mobilisation against Racketeering in Palermo
2014Co-Authors: Carina GunnarsonAbstract:This article analyses the business community and the anti-Racketeering campaign“Change shopping habits against paying extortion racket” (“pizzo”) launched by theorganisation Addiopizzo in Palermo, Sicily. The aim of this campaign was twofold: toencourage consumers to support companies that were not paying protection money to the localmafia, and to support entrepreneurs that refused to pay for protection. To date, Addiopizzo hasmobilised about 800 firms and 10,000 citizens. The experience in Palermo of anti-mafiabusiness movements is perceived as a critical case where it is difficult to establish collectiveaction among businesses due to a strong presence of organised crime. Drawing on the socialcapital theory and mobilisation research, three solutions to the collective action dilemma areidentified in this article: mobilisation through organisations, recruitment through ties, andtrust. These three solutions are complementary and point at the possibility that socialmovements can bring about social and cultural change in a context marked by high risk,distrust, and a lack of cooperative tradition. Furthermore, this article shows that themobilisation of businesses followed different paths and, to some extent, varied over time. Theanalysis is built upon a unique dataset collected from 277 firms that joined Addiopizzo’scampaign between 2005 and 2011, and from interviews and informal discussions with about100 entrepreneurs.
Milan Korcok - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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MDs win right to sue HMOs for Racketeering
Canadian Medical Association Journal, 2002Co-Authors: Milan KorcokAbstract:When American physicians are upset about their fees, they don't go on strike — they go to court. Thanks to a recent court ruling, 600 000 physicians have been given the right to sue some of the nation's largest HMOs for fraud and Racketeering. The ruling allows the doctors, who are supported by 5
Brian Nisbet - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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What Can Rico Not Do: Rico and the Non-Economic Intrastate Enterprise that Perpetrates only Non-Economic Racketeering Activity
Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 2009Co-Authors: Brian NisbetAbstract:The First and Sixth Circuits Courts of Appeal have split on whether ? 1962(c) of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act requires the Government to prove substantial effects on interstate commerce where the defendant commits non-economic Racketeering activity and is associated with a non-economic intrastate enterprise. This Comment concludes that while requiring substantial effects on interstate commerce represents a jurisprudential sea change, federal courts should employ a more stringent standard to determine whether an enterprise or the defendant's Racketeering activity affects interstate commerce. This Comment also visits the First Circuit Court of Appeals' erroneous application of the principles set forth in the Supreme Court's decision in Gonzales v. Raich to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, and discusses the potential impact of Raich on future RICO decisions.
James B. Jacobs - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Is Labor Union Corruption Special
2014Co-Authors: James B. JacobsAbstract:Labor Racketeering has attracted a good deal of attention from law enforcement agencies, legislators, and journalists, but surprisingly little attention from corruption scholars. While the origin of the term “labor Racketeering” is obscure, it has come to be associated with a type of corruption perpetrated by union officials under the direction of, or in conjunction with, organized crime (Cohen 2003, 575-76, 587-91; Jacobs 2006, 11-12). Organized crime bosses exploit unions and union members through alliances with corrupted or intimidated union officials (Jacobs 2006, 234). In return, union officials provide mobsters access to the union treasury, pension and welfare funds, no-show jobs with the union, and support in establishing and enforcing employer cartels (Jacobs 2006, 14, 65, 80). Some organized crime members have held formal union office (Jacobs 2006, 20, 50, 203-04). In addition, of course, corrupt union officials, whether or not connected to organized crime figures, engage in “ordinary” organizational corruption, such as misappropriation of funds. The most distinctive form of corruption by union officials is taking employers’ bribes to ignore violations of the collective bargaining contract, or even to allow employer to operate nonunion shops (Jacobs 2006, 102).
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Is Labor Union Corruption Special
2013Co-Authors: James B. JacobsAbstract:Labor Racketeering has attracted a good deal of attention from law enforcement agencies, legislators, and journalists, but surprisingly little attention from corruption scholars. While the origin of the term "labor Racketeering" is obscure, it has come to be associated with a type of corruption perpetrated by union officials under the direction of, or in conjunction with, organized crime. Organized crime bosses exploit unions and union members through alliances with corrupted or intimidated union officials. In return, union officials provide mobsters access to the union treasury, pension and welfare funds, no-show jobs with the union, and support in establishing and enforcing employer cartels. The insistence that attacking or even studying labor union corruption and Racketeering is bad for the labor movement (and is even "anti-labor") has a long history. No doubt some investigators, critics, and students of labor Racketeering and corruption are unfriendly to labor unions, some perhaps because of what they learned from their research.
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Racketeering and the decline of the labor movement
2011Co-Authors: James B. JacobsAbstract:Labor History presents a symposium on David Witwer's SHADOW OF THE RACKETEER: SCANDAL IN ORGANIZED LABOR. This article argues that, contrary to the view of some labor studies scholars, labor racketeers have not been good for labor unions. It documents the diverse ways in which labor racketeers harm labor unions and have weakened the labor movement.
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Labor Racketeering: The Mafia and the Unions
Crime and Justice, 2003Co-Authors: James B. Jacobs, Ellen PetersAbstract:The labor movement and its members have long suffered from extortion, thievery, and fraud. Corrupt labor officials have used union power to extort money from businesses. Labor Racketeering has been a major source of the Cosa Nostra crime families' power and wealth since the 1930s. Nonetheless, combating labor Racketeering did not become a federal law enforcement priority until Jimmy Hoffa's assassination in 1975. The U. S. Department of Justice, beginning in the early 1980s, brought or threatened civil Racketeering lawsuits against numerous mobbed-up locals and four international unions. These lawsuits led to an unprecedented effort by court-appointed monitors and trustees to purge the corrupted unions of racketeers and Racketeering and to reform the unions.
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blacklisting public contractors as an anti corruption and Racketeering strategy
Criminal Justice Ethics, 1992Co-Authors: James B. Jacobs, Frank AnechiaricoAbstract:In New York City, the struggle against organized crime and the most recent round of corruption scandals have prompted a series of "reforms" aimed at denying public contracts to individuals and firms that are "mob-connected" or otherwise corrupt. While the motivation behind these initiatives is understandable, the initiatives themselves raise complex and difficult issues of governmental ethics, fairness, and efficiency. For example: (1) Should government operating agencies attempt to punish corrupt individuals and organizations by denying them public contracts? (2) Does government have an ethical responsibility to avoid doing business with corrupt contractors? (3) Can blacklisting be implemented fairly and systematically so as not to jeopardize the efficient operation of government? Background In August, 1991, the New York City School Construction Authority (SCA)(1) announced that it was blacklisting for up to five years more than fifty construction firms. The policy was shaped by SCA's inspector general, Thomas D. Thacher II, formerly director of the joint Manhattan D.A. and NYS Organized Crime Task Force's strike force on corruption and Racketeering in the New York City construction industry. Nearly half the disqualifications were based on purported mob ties or criminality--such as bribery of a union official or inspector, tax fraud, minority business enterprise fraud, and money laundering--not on poor performance on previous government contracts or inability to perform future contracts.(2) The SCA's move is the farthest in a progression of steps by City agencies to sanitize the multi-billion-dollar contracting process of any taint of corruption. It attests to the political strength of anticorruption reforms following the 1980s City corruption scandals,(3) and the growing influence of law enforcement agencies and personnel in all facets of public administration and public policy. The SCA prequalification procedure for would-be contractors includes a 30-page prequalification questionnaire which, among other things, asks: In the past ten years has the applicant firm, or any of its current or past key people or affiliate firms .. taken the Fifth Amendment in testimony regarding a business related crime? .. given or offered to give money or any other benefit to a labor official or public servant with intent to influence that labor official or public servant with respect to any of his or her official acts, duties or decisions as a labor official [sic]? ... agreed with another to bid below the market rate?(4) An applicant can be prosecuted as well as blacklisted for a false answer. Given the pervasiveness of payoffs to labor officials and building inspectors in the New York City construction industry, a large percentage of firms that answer these questions in the negative are making themselves vulnerable to administrative and criminal sanctions. Agencies subject to the New York City Charter operate under a similar, but somewhat less stringent, regimen. Under new contract procurement rules, each agency's contracting officer and chief administrator must determine whether a contractor or vendor is financially, operationally, and morally responsible. If the agency believes the would-be contractor to be "corrupt," the contract must be denied. Even if the agency finds the contractor to be morally responsible, the City Comptroller has authority to review the agency's judgment and to object to the registration of a contract if it may reasonably be supposed that the contractor or the agency is "corrupt."(5) However, the Charter does not define "moral" or "corrupt," nor does it specify the grounds for the agency's or the Comptroller's objections. In the last few years, law enforcement agencies and anti-corruption units within city government have been exhorting government agencies to refuse to do business with criminals and racketeers and their companies. For instance, in late October, 1991, City Comptroller Elizabeth Holtzman (former Brooklyn District Attorney) urged Mayor David Dinkins to overrule his Chief Procurement Officer's decision to enter into a contract with a construction firm which had failed to report that it had once been investigated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for a workplace safety issue. …
Peterson, Christopher L. - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Trump University and Presidential Impeachment
Utah Law Digital Commons, 2016Co-Authors: Peterson, Christopher L.Abstract:Donald J. Trump (“Trump”), the Republican Party’s 2016 nominee for President of the United States, currently faces three lawsuits accusing him of fraud, false advertising, and Racketeering. These ongoing cases focus on a series of wealth seminars Trump called “Trump University” which collected over $40 million from consumers seeking to learn Trump’s real estate investing strategies. Although these consumer protection cases are civil proceedings, the underlying legal elements in several counts plaintiffs seek to prove run parallel to the legal elements of serious crimes under both state and federal law. Somehow in the cacophony of the 2016 presidential campaign, no legal academic has yet turned to the question of whether Trump’s alleged behavior would, if proven, rise to the level of impeachable offenses under the impeachment clause of the United States Constitution. Addressing this issue of public concern, this essay provides a legal analysis exploring whether the United States House of Representatives could lawfully impeach and the Senate could convict a President Trump for fraud and Racketeering in connection with Trump University. In the sections that follow, I first provide a summary of the evidence assembled in the three pending Trump University civil lawsuits. Part two describes the legal claims involved in each matter. Part three briefly summarizes the applicable law of presidential impeachment under the United States Constitution and analyzes whether Trump’s actions in connection with Trump University are impeachable offenses. And finally, I offer concluding thoughts, considering in particular the policy implications of a major presidential candidacy with simultaneously pending legal complaints of fraud and Racketeering
