The future of the honest-services fraud statute, one of the most common tools prosecutors use in anti-corruption cases, remains a mystery in Washington, as courts digest the effect of a recent Supreme Court ruling narrowing the law while lawmakers try to undo that same decision.
The ruling, Skilling v. United States, vacated the conviction of Jeffrey Skilling, the now-infamous ex-CEO of Enron who led the company as it collapsed in accounting fraud in 2001. The Supreme Court handed down that decision in June and also reined in the scope of the honest-services statue, holding that it covers only bribery and kickback schemes and not undisclosed self-dealing. Now federal district courts across the land are trying to apply that standard to current fraud and corruption cases.
