Because corporations function through their officers, employees, and agents, corporations are liable for the crimes committed by their officers or agents. In most federal jurisdictions including New York, in order for such liability to exist, the criminal acts must have been committed within the scope of employment and with intent to benefit the corporation or further the corporate business.
In corporate and business criminal cases, a corporation may be involved in a scheme to defraud, but that alone will not necessarily make its officers criminally liable. In these cases the prosecutor must prove that the corporate officers actively participated scheme.
However, if the corporation is charged with conspiracy to commit mail or wire fraud, the government doesn’t have to prove that every single defendant knew of every particular detail of the scheme. Also, corporate offices who played relatively minimal role in the scheme can still be found guilty of the conspiracy as long as the they knew that they were participating in a criminal conspiracy.
In order to determine what is consider “participation” in the conspiracy, courts will look at the corporate officers’ intent. Did they intent the scheme to succeed? If a business employee doesn’t know that he is part of a criminal scheme, doesn’t care that the scheme succeeds, and doesn’t have any criminal intent, there is no participation and that lack of intent is a complete defense.
If you are charged with a federal business crime in New York, contact our New York white collar defense lawyers today at (212) 577-6677 to set up an immediate consultation.