Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations Act

Like many communities, this fast-growing agricultural pocket of southwestern Idaho is paying a high tab for illegal immigration. When an illegal worker gave birth to a premature baby, Canyon County wound up with a $174,000 hospital bill. County officials say the jail spent thousands to house another illegal immigrant at a motel, after his tuberculosis threatened to infect fellow inmates.

Thirty-six alleged members or associates of the Mexican Mafia were indicted Friday in a case that federal officials predicted would be the beginning of the end for the violent gang's stranglehold on some of San Diego County's Latino neighborhoods. "Any organization built on violence and drugs has to be dismantled, and today we begin that process," U.S. Atty. Carol Lam said. The charges include racketeering, drug trafficking, murder, robbery, extortion and money laundering.

More than eight months after it started, the Justice Department's marathon civil case against the tobacco industry enters its final lap today with closing arguments on whether the leading cigarette makers are guilty of fraud and racketeering. The immense case, which already has cost the two sides hundreds of millions of dollars, has been described as the largest civil suit ever brought under the federal anti-racketeering statute known as RICO.

Biologist Robin Eliason has been a model employee of the U.S. Forest Service since 1989, winning a certificate of merit every year and establishing a reputation as the government's expert on bald eagles in the San Bernardino National Forest. But now Eliason, her husband, Scott, a Forest Service botanist, and their boss, San Bernardino National Forest Supervisor Gene Zimmerman, have had to hire their own attorney to defend them in a lawsuit accusing them of racketeering.

A mammoth government effort to prove tourist muggers in Miami were running an organized crime syndicate ended in failure Tuesday when a federal jury failed to convict 12 defendants on any conspiracy charge. Prosecutors flew in dozens of people from Europe and South America to testify about crimes allegedly committed against them by members of the group, nicknamed "the dirty dozen," during visits to Miami in the early 1990s.

Using a class-action suit filed under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the National Organization for Women asked a federal court jury Wednesday to force militant antiabortion leaders to pay for damages caused in clinic attacks. The lawsuit names as defendants two of the most militant antiabortion groups, Operation Rescue and the Pro-Life Action League, as well as three of the league's top leaders.

Members of a notorious national crime ring, who fled from two Newport Beach stores with about $8 million in gems after swift and terrifying take-over robberies, have been convicted and sentenced to prison. The seven-year, $16-million crime spree stretched from California to Florida, authorities said. The ring was known for theatrics, efficiency and the value of its loot.