OUJI-CR 3-31

PATTERN OF RACKETEERING ACTIVITY - DEFINITION

A pattern of racketeering activity means two or more occasions of conduct that include each of the following:

(1) constituted racketeering activity,

(2) were related to the affairs of the enterprise,

(3) were not isolated,

(4) were not so closely related to each other and connected in point of time and place that they constituted a single event, and

and where each of the following is present:

(1) the last of the occasions of conduct occurred within three (3) years of a prior occasion of conduct,

(2) each of the occasions of conduct constituted a felony under Oklahoma law.

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Statutory Authority: 22 O.S. Supp. 1995, § 1402(5).

Committee Comments

The United States Supreme Court in H.J. Inc. v. Northwestern Bell Telephone Co., 492 U.S. 229, 239 (1989), ruled that in addition to the Federal Act's version of the above elements there was a legislative intent evinced by the choice of the word "pattern" that the predicates (occasions) "amount to or pose a threat of continued criminal activity." Because the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has not yet addressed this issue, the "continuity element" has not been grafted to the statutory elements by the Commission. It should be noted that there is a substantial difference in the time element between the Federal Act and Oklahoma's. In the Federal Act, the "predicates" must be within ten (10) years of each other; in the Oklahoma Act, the "occasions" must have occurred within three (3) years of each other. 22 O.S.Supp.1993, § 1402(5)(b)(2).