Supreme Court Case to Test Reach of Mail, Wire Fraud Statutes

The US Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case that could restrict the government’s ability to bring federal mail and wire fraud lawsuits where the defendant lied to get a victim to enter into a transaction, but there was no economic harm.

The high court has said the statutes at issue are only intended to reach schemes to defraud a victim of property. But the petitioners argue the government has expanded the laws by leveraging the fraudulent-inducement theory of mail and wire fraud to prosecute schemes causing exclusively regulatory harm.

The issue in the case, Kousisis v. United States ...