Former President Donald Trump and 18 others face similar charges against criminal organizations for conspiring in Georgia to change the results of the presidential election.
“At all times relevant to this indictment, the defendants, as well as others not named as defendants, unlawfully conspired and endeavored to conduct and participate in a criminal enterprise in Fulton County, Georgia, and elsewhere,” it states. the charge document.
The indictment released by the Grand Jury mentions that up to 30 people would have participated in the conspiracy, but there are 19 formally identified, starting the list with former President Trump and his former personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.
“[Constituyeron] a criminal organization whose members and associates engaged in various related criminal activities including, but not limited to, false statements and writings, impersonation of a public official, forgery, false document production, witness influence, computer theft, computer trespassing , invasion of privacy on computers, conspiracy to defraud the state, acts of theft and perjury,” the court document states.
This is the first indictment in which the former Republican president is accused of violating the Mafioso Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law, a rule that is regularly applied to mafias and groups with links to cartels in the United States.
Said law in Georgia is known as MAFRARO, which allows several conspirators to be included in one accusation.
It notes that former President Trump and his 18 allies, in the state of Georgia and Fulton County, “while associated with a company [criminal]unlawfully conspired and endeavored to carry out and participate in, directly and indirectly, said enterprise through a pattern of organized crime activity.”
The document specifies that the criminal actions occurred as of November 4, 2020, but it also mentions September 15, 2022.
The accused are former President Trump, Rudolph Giuliani –who was his lawyer–, John Charles Eastman, Mark Randall Meadows, Kenneth John Ci-Iesebro, Jeffrey Bossert, Jenna Lynn, Ray Stallings, Roberd David Cheely, Michael A. Roman, David James Shafer, Shawn Micah Tresi-Ier Still, Stephen Cliffgard Lee, Harrison William Prescott, Trvian C. Kutti, Sidney Katherine Powell, Cathleen Alston Latham, Scott Graham Hall, and Misty Hampton.
In addition to Giuliani, Powell was part of former President Trump’s legal team, who unsuccessfully defended the electoral fraud theory in court, because the evidence they presented was dismissed.
The indictment released Monday night, after an extensive investigation that began in February 2021 – a month after the attack on the Capitol – indicates that the defendants operated in Fulton County, Georgia, but also in other entities.
The states mentioned, as part of the conspiracy effort by Trump and his allies are Arizona, Michigan, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, as well as the city of Washington, although the indictment indicates that there could be more.
“The organization [criminal] operated for a sufficient period of time to allow its members and associates to achieve their objectives,” the document says.
The defendants face 41 charges, 161 actions are also listed that expose the various activities that Trump and his allies allegedly carried out to commit their crimes.
This indictment is in addition to that filed by the Department of Justice against Trump and six co-conspirators in Washington, DC
Former President Trump is mentioned 180 times in the charging document, multiple times in all 41 counts, as well as in all 161 criminal actions.
Both former President Trump and several of his co-conspirators are accused of illegally soliciting and importuning the Secretary of State of Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, responsible for organizing the elections in the entity.
“[Los acusados buscaron] unlawfully altering, adjusting, or influencing the certified statements of presidential electors for the November 3, 2020 Georgia presidential election.
That’s in violation of Raffensperger’s oath to protect the electoral process. It should be remembered that former President Trump telephoned the Secretary of State to ask him to “find” more than 11,000 votes in the entity.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis opened the investigation in February 2021, just days after Trump called Raffensperger.
Source: La Opinion
