Does RICO require a criminal team?
The Supreme Court is being asked to decide whether a former sheriff’s deputy who was convicted of planting drugs on motorists in a spree of false arrests also violated Florida’s racketeering law.
The state is challenging a November 2024 ruling by the First District Court of Appeal that upheld former Jackson County Sheriff’s Deputy Zachary Wester’s 2021 conviction on perjury, evidence tampering, drug possession, and other charges – but reversed his conviction on a single count of racketeering – because he acted alone.
Wester received a twelve-and-a-half-year prison sentence.

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