Justices Uphold PennDOT Contractor’s Wire Fraud Convictions (2)

The US Supreme Court left in place a state contractor’s wire fraud convictions in a Thursday ruling, rejecting arguments challenging the government’s “fraudulent inducement” theory.

The government doesn’t need to prove that a defendant who uses falsehoods to induce someone to enter into a transaction intended or caused economic harm, the court held in an opinion by Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

The decision reverses a trend stretching back to 1987 where the justices had pruned back the avenues available to federal prosecutions of white collar crime, invalidating some fraud theories that relied on intangible property interests.

The statute at issue ...