The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization.
Iva Ikuko Toguri D'Aquino was an American disc jockey and radio personality who participated in English-language radio broadcasts transmitted by Radio Tokyo to Allied troops in the South Pacific during World War II on the Zero Hour radio show. Toguri called herself "Orphan Annie", but she quickly became inaccurately identified with the name "Tokyo Rose", coined by Allied soldiers and which predated her broadcasts.
King & Spalding LLP is an American multinational corporate law firm that is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with offices located in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. It has over 1,300 lawyers in 23 offices globally. It is Am Law 100, Global 30, and white-shoe firm.
George Homer Ryan is an American former politician who served as the 39th governor of Illinois from 1999 to 2003. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as secretary of State of Illinois from 1991 to 1999 and as lieutenant governor from 1983 to 1991. He was later convicted of federal racketeering, bribery, extortion, money laundering and tax fraud stemming from his time in office.
Patrick J. Fitzgerald is an American lawyer and former partner at the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.
Operation Greylord was an investigation conducted jointly by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the IRS Criminal Investigation Division, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Chicago Police Department Internal Affairs Division and the Illinois State Police into corruption in the judiciary of Cook County, Illinois. The FBI named the investigation "Operation Greylord" after the curly wigs worn by British judges.
Shira Ann Scheindlin is an American attorney and jurist who served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. She is currently of counsel at Boies Schiller Flexner LLP.
The Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law is the law school of Northwestern University, a private research university. The law school is located on the university's Chicago campus. Northwestern Law is considered part of the T14, an unofficial designation in the legal community as the best 14 law schools in the United States.
Rob Warden is a Chicago legal affairs journalist and co-founder of three organizations dedicated to exonerating the innocent and reforming criminal justice: the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, the National Registry of Exonerations at the University of California-Irvine, and Injustice Watch, a non-partisan, not-for-profit, journalism organization that conducts in-depth research exposing institutional failures that obstruct justice and equality. As an investigative journalist in the 1970s, he began focusing on death penalty cases, which led to a career exposing and publicizing the injustices and misconduct in the legal system. Warden's work was instrumental in the blanket commutation of death row cases in Illinois in 2003 and in the abolition of the Illinois death penalty in 2011.
The United States Organized Crime Strike Force (Strike Forces) is a program of the United States Department of Justice Criminal Division empowering individual and coordinated units based in American cities across the country to pursue illegal racketeering by organized crime syndicates, including the Mafia, Gangs, the Irish Mob, the Russian mafia, and more. The Strike Forces have largely been eliminated since Attorney General Dick Thornburgh in 1989 merged the Strike Forces with the AUSAs, in what was called the "slow death" of the effort against organized crime. Other Strike Forces have been merged with the Strike Forces of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), losing the focus of racketeering to focus on drugs and narcotics.
McGuireWoods LLP is a US-based international law firm headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. Initially founded in 1834, the firm has grown into the largest law firm in the state of Virginia, and has 21 offices across the country. Along with its Richmond headquarters, the firm's largest offices are located in Chicago, Illinois and Charlotte, North Carolina.
John Henry Durham is an American lawyer who served as the United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut from 2018 to 2021. By April 2019, the Trump administration assigned him to investigate the origins of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections, and in October 2020 he was appointed special counsel for the Department of Justice on that matter.
Lanny Arthur Breuer is an American criminal defense lawyer who currently serves as vice chair of Covington & Burling LLP. From 2009 to 2013, he served as Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice under President Barack Obama. From 1997 to 1999, he served as Special Counsel to President Bill Clinton. He is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.
Edward Francis Harrington is an American lawyer who serves as a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
Virginia Mary Kendall is an American attorney and jurist serving as the chief United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. President George W. Bush appointed her to the bench on January 3, 2006. In addition to serving on the bench, Judge Kendall is also a noted expert on child exploitation and human trafficking, as well as an adjunct professor and author.
Daniel K. Webb is an American lawyer and public official. He is the co-executive chairman of the international law firm of Winston & Strawn. He is a former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois and previously served as the Special Counsel in the Iran-Contra affair. As the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, he was the top federal law enforcement official in the city of Chicago on behalf of the United States Department of Justice. As U.S. Attorney, Webb led Operation Greylord and successfully prosecuted 76 corrupt judges, police officers, court clerks, and lawyers.
Thomas P. Sullivan was a prominent Illinois attorney known for his involvement in notable constitutional cases, investigations, and contributions to public policy and law. He was a partner at the Jenner & Block law firm.
T. Markus Funk is an American attorney, law professor, and author known for the prosecution of several high-profile mob figures during his career at the United States Department of Justice, his role in co-leading the internal investigation into former Ohio State University team physician Dr. Richard Strauss, and trial victory on behalf of the Costa Rican citrus industry. He is currently a partner in the law firm of Perkins Coie, where he served as the Firmwide Chair of the firm's global White Collar & Investigations Practice.
Joon Hyun Kim is an American attorney who served as the acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from March 2017 to January 2018. He was Deputy U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York from July 2015 to March 2017 after serving as the chief of the criminal division since July 2014. From April 2013 to July 2014, Kim was the chief counsel to the U.S. Attorney. In March 2021, Kim was chosen by New York Attorney General Letitia James as independent counsel, along with Anne L. Clark, to co-lead the investigation into sexual harassment claims made against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Zachary Thomas Fardon served as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. He began serving as the U.S. Attorney in Chicago on October 23, 2013, after President Obama signed his commission. He resigned on March 13, 2017.
