APRI Highlights - Summer 2003

Sean Morgan

Program Manager and Senior Attorney, White Collar Crime Program

What is telecommunications fraud, and how does it affect the local prosecutor? Simply put, telecommunications fraud includes traditional types of crime, such as telemarketing fraud, as well as other frauds perpetrated using the Internet, telephone, cable and wireless connectivity devices and networks.

The definition of telecommunications services is broadening. An example is A.R.S. § 13-3707 (2003), an Arizona statute that defines telecommunications services for fraud purposes as “telephone and telegraph services and all other services involving the transmission of information by wire, radio, cellular or similar means.” Arizona’s state legislators also have determined that electronic mail and software fit within this definition. As a result, the types of cybercrimes encompassed within this definition are certain to grow. In response to this and similar statutes in other states, broadening the reach of telecommunications fraud criminal statutes, APRI’s White Collar Crime Program (WCCP) is expanding the scope of its training and technical assistance efforts to assist prosecutors in combating these crimes.

Over the next year, the WCCP will conduct three regional conferences entitled 21st Century Fraud—Combating Electronic Media-Based Fraud. Each three-day course will focus on the investigation and prosecution of fraud committed using computers, computer networks, and telephone lines, particularly where elderly persons are victimized. The WCCP also will continue to assist prosecutors in combating financial exploitation of the elderly. In spring 2004, APRI will convene up to 50 key policy-makers from the prosecutorial, law enforcement, legislative, and judicial communities for a National Conference on Telecommunications Fraud & Financial Exploitation. Watch our Web site for dates and locations.

The WCCP has also completed three publications as part of APRI’s Special Topics series:

Prosecution of Elder Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation—Criminal Liability, Due Process and Hearsay reports on case law relating to elder abuse, focusing on three issues often encountered by the elder abuse prosecutor—how the courts have dealt with accountability for failing to act in caring for the elderly; what is required to place perpetrators on notice that failure to act can result in criminal liability; and admission of hearsay statements of elder victims.

Fifty-One Experiments in Fighting Elder Abuse: A Survey of State Criminal Laws on Elder Abuse and Neglect is a short narrative, accompanied by tables, which digests criminal elder abuse, neglect, exploitation and mandatory reporting statutes for all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Telemarketing Fraud Prevention and Prosecution: The Experience of Five Demonstration Sites details the work of the California Department of Corporations, the Georgia Governor’s Office of Consumer Affairs, the Vermont Attorney General’s Office, the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office, and the Hillsborough County, (Florida) State Attorney’s Office to combat telemarketing fraud against the elderly. It spotlights strategies and techniques that were found to be effective in the battle against telemarketing fraud, identifies common challenges and efforts that were undertaken to surmount them and concludes with a discussion of future trends in telemarketing fraud.

The WCCP also released a CD-ROM entitled, Secure Lines: A Practice Aid for Prosecutors Fighting Telemarketing Fraud. The CD-ROM is a compilation of materials that APRI has used for training and technical assistance purposes since 1997. It will serve as a reference tool for local prosecutors—a library of APRI’s “greatest hits” and most effective materials used in trainings.

All three special topics publications and the CD-ROM will be distributed free of charge to every prosecutor and prosecutor coordinator’s office in the country. For more information about APRI’s White Collar Crime Program and its publications, please contact whitecollar@ndaa-apri.org or call 703-549-4253.