Word: defraud
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Conspiracy. A broad-gauged section of the U.S. Code makes it a crime to conspire to defraud the Federal Government of money or property; the doctrine also applies to efforts to interfere with the proper functioning of any Government agency. Though it is difficult to prove conspiracy, siphoning off arms-sales profits that may have belonged to the U.S. Treasury, selling weapons under incorrect procedures, and the jumble of other deceptions could qualify. North was named, but not indicted, as a co-conspirator in a tax fraud involving improper deductions claimed for contributions used to purchase contra arms...
Supporting the Nicaraguan rebels with profits from U.S. arms sales to Iran may have been a misappropriation of federal funds and a violation of the Boland amendment, as well as conspiracy to defraud the Government...
Participants could be charged with conspiracy to defraud the Government and obstruction of justice...
...against him, he can still be prosecuted on the basis of other evidence collected by Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh. In the view of legal experts, the testimony of witnesses to the Iran-contra committees has provided more than enough evidence to support indictments on such counts as conspiracy to defraud the Government and conspiracy to obstruct justice...
...many ways, the law is a prosecutor's dream. Courts have interpreted its "defraud" section to apply to any conspiracy that interferes with the lawful functioning of Government, even if the plot did not result in any other provable crime. People who play widely varying roles in a conspiracy can be judged equally guilty, and only one defendant need be shown to have committed "any act to effect the object of the conspiracy." Thus the prosecutor does not have to focus on the narrow specifics of allegedly illegal acts; he can lay a long, complex story before the jury...