Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor Approves Progression of Businessmen’s Trial
The four individuals linked to the ‘Buffalo Billion’ development initiative in New York face allegations of fraud.
On February 3, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor made the decision to lift a temporary stay that had obstructed a second fraud trial for four New York businessmen whose convictions were annulled by the Supreme Court in 2023.
The initiative, spearheaded by then-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, aimed to establish a solar panel manufacturing facility among other projects, intending to secure over $8 billion in investments directed toward Buffalo and the surrounding western New York region. Cuomo presented the initiative during his 2012 State of the State address.
This ruling followed the Supreme Court’s departure in 2023 from the long-standing right-to-control fraud theory, which posited that federal fraud laws safeguard a victim’s economic information necessary for informed economic choices. The now-retired theory asserted that the lack of complete and accurate information essential for making economic decisions constituted property fraud, even in the absence of the deprivation of tangible assets.
The Supreme Court concluded that the statutes protect traditional property rights, which do not extend to information essential for economic decisions. Thus, fraud is recognized only when a deceiver uses trickery to rob a victim of a property interest, such as money or physical assets.
Supreme Court rules permit applicants to refile an application that has been denied by one justice to another. It remains uncertain whether they will pursue this option.
Subsequently, the cases were redirected to the Second Circuit for reevaluation based on two decisions issued by the Supreme Court during the same month—Percoco v. United States and United States v. Ciminelli—that restricted the application of the federal honest services fraud statute and the right-to-control fraud theory.
This ruling limited the extent of the honest services fraud statute, which some legal professionals and civil rights advocates argue is ambiguous and overly broad.
Federal law characterizes honest services fraud as “a scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.” While initially designed to target government corruption, its application is not confined to public officials and can extend to private individuals.
The term “honest services” remains undefined, permitting courts to interpret its scope. For a case of honest services fraud to be established, bribery must have occurred and someone must have been harmed. The underlying principle is that the bribed individual has a duty to another party, typically to the public.
Prosecutors accused Ciminelli of manipulating bids for state contracts. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and related charges by a federal court in Manhattan in 2018.
Ciminelli contended that the right-to-control fraud theory claimed by the government and upheld by the Second Circuit in this case was invalid.
The Supreme Court concurred with Ciminelli, dismissing the right-to-control theory.
They argued that the high court should grant the stay as there exists both a “reasonable probability” that the Court would reconsider and a “fair prospect” of a reversal.
They claimed that the Second Circuit’s judgement “flagrantly contradicts this Court’s directive in Ciminelli, which necessitated the lower court to adhere to this Court’s established precedents.”
The applicants are “mistaken” in their assertion that the Supreme Court is “likely to grant review.”
“The applicants’ assertion that an appeals court must evaluate the adequacy of trial evidence under a legal standard established post-trial is unfounded,” she noted.
The Epoch Times reached out to the applicants’ attorney, former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement of Clement and Murphy in Alexandria, Virginia, as well as the U.S. Department of Justice.
No responses were received by the time of publication.