In a recent Supreme Court case, prosecutors unsuccessfully attempted to enhance their anticorruption toolbox by using Section 666 to convict a local official of accepting a gratuity. Partners Ki Hong, Jesse Liu and Alessio Evangelista and associate Theodore Grodek conclude that the case essentially leaves the legal landscape where it started: Federal prosecutors can pursue state and local officials for bribery violations on an honest services fraud theory, but not for receiving gratuities — such violations will have to be enforced by state and local prosecutors under state anticorruption laws.
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