Fulton County Dist. thoughtful Fani Willis opened her investigation into former President Trump following the release of a recording of a January 2021 phone conversation between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Trump suggested during the phone call that Raffensperger, a Republican and the state’s top election official, could help find the votes needed to reverse his narrow loss to then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

More than two years later, the indictment filed Monday by a grand jury went far beyond that phone call and alleged a web of crimes committed by Trump and others. Willis used the law of Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, to sue Trump and 18 associates for allegedly participating in a broad conspiracy to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.

Willis told reporters late Monday that she planned to try all 19 defendants together and noted her prosecutors’ experience with racketeering cases, saying this was the 11th RICO case brought by her office. Willis became a district attorney for Fulton County, which includes Atlanta, in 2021.

Here’s a look at how the law works.

How does an anti-gangster law apply to Trump and his allies?

The federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act was created in 1970 as a tool to combat organized crime. The law allowed prosecutors to target people in positions of authority within a criminal organization, not just lower-level people doing the dirty work.

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But it was never intended that its use should be restricted solely to organized crime. The Supreme Court noted in a 1989 opinion that the law was drafted broad enough to encompass a wide range of criminal activity, take many different forms, and likely attract a wide range of offenders.

Within a few years of the federal law going into effect, states began to pass their own RICO laws. In general, RICO laws allow prosecutors to charge multiple people who commit separate crimes while working toward a common cause.

What does Georgia’s RICO law say?

Georgia’s RICO Act, passed in 1980, makes it a crime to participate in, gain or maintain control of any business through racketeering activity or to conspire to do so. It is important to note that the alleged scheme does not have to be successful for a RICO charge to stand.

A company can be a single person or a group of connected individuals with a common goal. Racketeering activity means committing, attempting to commit, or soliciting, coercing, or intimidating someone else to commit any of the more than three dozen state crimes listed in the law. At least two such acts are required to meet the standard of a racketeering pattern, which means that prosecutors must prove that a person is involved in two or more related criminal acts as part of their participation in an enterprise in order to be convicted under RICO.

The U.S. Supreme Court has said federal RICO allegations must show continuity, that is, a series of related underlying acts over an extended period of time, not just a few weeks or months. But the Supreme Court of Georgia has made it clear that there is no such requirement in state law.

Why use the RICO Statute?

I’m a fan of RICO, Willis said at a press conference in August 2022 when she announced a RICO charge against more than two dozen alleged gang members.

Willis has said jurors want to know all the facts behind an alleged crime and that a RICO indictment allows prosecutors to provide a full picture of all alleged illegal activity. A narrative introduction allows prosecutors to tell a story that can contain a lot of detailed information that may not relate to specific crimes, but is relevant to the broader alleged scheme.

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RICO charges also carry a severe potential penalty that can be added on top of the penalty for the underlying acts.

In Georgia, it is a felony conviction punishable by five to 20 years in prison; a fine of $25,000 or three times the amount of money earned from the criminal activity, whichever is greater; or both imprisonment and a fine.

What are the challenges of using the RICO Statute?

J. Tom Morgan used the Georgia RICO statute to prosecute a corrupt sheriff when he was a district attorney in DeKalb County, which borders Fulton County. He said a challenge is explaining to a jury what the RICO law is and how it works.

Everyone knows what a murder case is, what a rape case is, what a robbery case is. But RICO is not vernacular in the everyday, he said. “You don’t see a RICO indictment on a television crime show.

Does Willis have previous experience with RICO cases?

Yes While she was an assistant district attorney in the Fulton County District Attorney’s office, Willis was the lead prosecutor in a RICO case against a group of Atlanta public school teachers in a cheating scandal. In April 2015, after a months-long trial, a jury convicted 11 former schoolteachers of racketeering for their role in a scheme to boost students’ scores on standardized exams.

Since becoming a prosecutor in January 2021, she has filed several RICO charges against alleged gang members, including several high-profile rap artists.

Lawyer John Floyd, a nationally known RICO expert in Atlanta, helped Willis with the school fraud case. Shortly after opening the investigation into possible illegal interference in Georgia’s 2020 election, she hired him as a special assistant district attorney to assist with any racketeering cases her office might pursue.