Latest Attack on the Federal Honest Services Fraud Statute
Earlier this month, a federal judge vacated two convictions related to the Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) investigation into corruption in international soccer, widely known as the “FIFA Case.”1 Despite the jury’s findings that the defendants were guilty of honest services fraud for their involvement in bribery and kickbacks schemes related to the acquisition of soccer broadcasting rights, the district court rejected the application of the honest services fraud theory to foreign commercial bribery. The court’s reversal of these convictions — and its later stay of sentencing for nine other defendants who were convicted or took plea deals in cases related to the same investigation — is just the latest salvo in federal courts’ weakening of the honest services fraud statute.
Background on the Problematic Enforcement of Honest Services Fraud
Honest services fraud is defined as a form of wire fraud that includes a “scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.”2 Since Congress enacted the honest services fraud statute in 1988, the Supreme Court and lower federal courts have consistently taken issue with the vague nature of the crime and steadily narrowed its scope.
