Ciminelli v. United States

Louis Ciminelli, a construction executive, was convicted of wire fraud for his role in a bid-rigging scheme tied to New York's Buffalo Billion initiative. Prosecutors alleged he paid bribes to secure contracts, relying on the "right to control" theory, which treats the deprivation of potentially valuable economic information as fraud. The U.S. Supreme Court reviewed whether this theory is valid under the federal wire fraud statute. On May 11, 2023, the Court unanimously held that the "right to control" theory is invalid because the statute protects only traditional property interests, not intangible rights to control one's assets. The conviction was reversed.

The Supreme Court reversed the Second Circuit, holding that the right-to-control theory is not a valid basis for wire fraud because it does not align with the statutory requirement of a scheme to obtain money or property.

Whether the "right to control" theory, which criminalizes schemes to deprive a victim of potentially valuable economic information necessary for discretionary decisions, constitutes "property" fraud under the federal wire fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1343.

The ruling narrowed the scope of federal fraud statutes, limiting prosecutors' ability to charge wire fraud based on intangible harms, and signaled a more textualist approach to white-collar criminal law.