Explain Like I'm Five

Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) laws. These were originally made to go after organized crime bosses.

Crime bosses will have layers of minions directly committing crimes. This lets the boss say it wasn't them. RICO provides laws to go after an entire criminal organization, including the bosses who direct the minions to commit crimes.

They are using the law in the Trump case because many of the direct crimes were done by minions. If they can prove that there was an organized series of crimes that were under the direction of boss Trump, they can hold him accountable for the crimes of the organization.

It's a law that was used to bring down mob bosses. It makes it illegal to have other people commit crimes for you.

https://casetext.com/statute/code-of-georgia/title-16-crimes-and-offenses/chapter-14-racketeer-influenced-and-corrupt-organizations/section-16-14-3-definitions#:~:text=(5)%20(A)%20%22,beverages%20in%20violation%20of%20Code

Hopefully that link works, the text of the law is fairly clear as far as legal texts go.

Basically RICO allows the government to go after the leaders of an organization for a pattern of criminal activity, rather than just going after the members for individual acts. It was created to make it easier to prosecute the Mafia and other organized crime.

You know how when you let your dog off his leash, and he bites someone, you get in trouble for it? That's RICO, basically.

I keep seeing references to RICO in The Sopranos. Was too lazy to google. Makes a lot of sense now, reading these explanations.