People v. Keschner

After a jury trial, Defendants - a licensed chiropractor and a licensed physician - were found guilty of, among other counts, enterprise corruption, scheme to defraud in the first degree, grand larceny in the first degree, and money laundering in the first degree. Defendants challenged their enterprise corruption convictions on the ground that the continuity of existence element was not demonstrated. The Appellate Division affirmed. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding (1) the People proved the existence of a criminal enterprise as a matter of law because the prosecution in an enterprise corruption case may prove that a defendant was a member of a criminal enterprise, with a continuity beyond the scope of individual criminal incidents, without showing that the enterprise would have survived the removal of a key participant; (2) Defendants’ challenges to the trial court’s instructions on accomplice liability were not preserved; and (3) Defendants received effective assistance of counsel. View "People v. Keschner" on Justia Law