United States v. Patriarca

Raymond Patriarca (defendant), the former head of the Mafia’s Patriarca family (the family), was federally charged with several Travel Act violations and Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) violations. After Patriarca served one year of pretrial detention, the district court determined that Patriarca posed neither a danger to the public nor a flight risk. The district court found that although in theory a Mafia Boss was highly dangerous, Patriarca had reluctantly become an ineffective boss through nepotism, had ceded much of his authority after an underling threatened to kill him, and was forced to fully step down because the family blamed him for the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) ability to record evidence leading to the RICO charges. Further, Patriarca had strong family ties, considerable legitimate employment history, no criminal record, and health issues that required hospitalization every few months. The district court ordered Patriarca’s conditional pretrial release, imposing (1) full-time house arrest and electronic monitoring; (2) release for doctor’s appointments and medical emergencies to be supervised by Patriarca’s attorney; (3) 24-hour video surveillance of every entrance to Patriarca’s house at Patriarca’s expense; (4) compliance with the FBI’s unannounced searches; and (5) execution of an agreement that Patriarca would forfeit real estate held in his relatives’ names worth $4 million if Patriarca violated any pretrial-release condition. The government (plaintiff) appealed the release order.