18 U.S.C. § 1343

Elements

  1. Scheme or artifice to defraud

    scheme or artifice to defraud

    A fraudulent plan, including a deliberately false promise, is required; an unsuccessful scheme can qualify. Do not convert a mere breach of contract into fraudulent intent.

  2. Traditional money or property as an object

    money or property

    Judicial construction of the statutory property/object requirement: the property target must be an object of the scheme, not merely an incidental expense of exercising regulatory power. Traditional intangible property can qualify; intangible regulatory interests and a free-standing right to control economic decisions cannot. Kousisis preserves Ciminelli and Kelly while rejecting a net-economic-loss requirement.

  3. Material deception

    false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises

    Judge-made incorporation of common-law fraud, not an express word in this statute. Kousisis leaves unresolved the parties' competing formulations of the materiality standard; it does not adopt an essence-of-the-bargain test as an additional universal element.

  4. Knowing participation with intent to defraud

    having devised or intending to devise

    Judicial construction of the scheme language requires fraudulent intent, distinct from negligence or contract breach. A deliberate material deception aimed at obtaining the victim's property suffices without intent to leave the victim economically worse off. Earlier intent-to-harm formulations must be read subject to Kousisis.

  5. Transmission or causation by wire, radio, television

    transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication

    The defendant need not personally send the transmission. Boliaux affirmed a conviction where control of the dealership and payment system made the charged transmissions foreseeable; its quoted analysis is the district court reasoning expressly adopted on appeal. This is judicial construction of the statutory causation alternative. Foreseeability of wire use is distinct from proof that the charged transmission actually crossed state or national boundaries and furthered the scheme.

  6. Interstate or foreign transmission

    in interstate or foreign commerce

    The charged transmission must satisfy the jurisdictional requirement. Identify evidence of interstate routing, not simply the presence of a computer or telephone.

  7. Wire transmission for execution of scheme

    for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice

    The wire act must further the fraudulent scheme; proof of a scheme cannot substitute for proof of the charged transmission. Buncich was an honest-services prosecution: its transmission/furtherance holding applies to the common communication requirement, not as a substitute for the property-fraud claim's separate property and materiality conjuncts.

  8. Separate section 1346 theory; outside property-fraud claim

    scheme or artifice to defraud

    Section 1346 supplies the intangible-right theory. Do not combine its different target with the property element above. Its bribery/kickback and fiduciary-duty limits require separate analysis; this boundary node is not a complete honest-services claim.

Cases

  1. United States v. Jefferson 562 F. Supp. 2d 719 (2008)

    criminal; pretrial motion to dismiss Counts 5-10 (honest-services wire fraud, §§ 1343 and 1346) of a sixteen-count indictment for failure to allege the elements and for vagueness; denied (result: claimant-won)

  2. Fleetwood Servs., LLC v. Complete Bus. Solutions Grp., Inc. 374 F. Supp. 3d 361 (2019)

    civil RICO action (18 U.S.C. § 1962(c)) with wire fraud as predicate; defendants' Rule 12(b)(6) / Rule 9(b) motions to dismiss denied as to the wire-fraud predicate (result: claimant-won)

  3. United States v. Sancho 957 F. Supp. 39 (1997)

    criminal; jury conviction on two wire fraud counts (§§ 1343, 1346) arising from a sting; defendant's post-verdict Rule 29(c) motion for judgment of acquittal (sufficiency) denied (result: claimant-won)

  4. United States v. Evans 844 F.2d 36 (1988)

    criminal; pretrial dismissal of 44 wire fraud and 2 mail fraud counts of an indictment (scheme to sell U.S.-origin arms to Iran using false end-user certificates); government interlocutory appeal under 18 U.S.C. 3731 (result: claimant-lost)

  5. United States v. Hasson 333 F.3d 1264 (2003)

    criminal; jury conviction of a jeweller on three wire fraud counts, § 371 conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money-laundering and obstruction conspiracies; direct appeal challenging sufficiency (scheme to defraud; foreseeability and purpose of the wires) and the forfeiture and restitution orders; affirmed (result: claimant-won)

  6. United States v. Corrigan 912 F.3d 422 (2019)

    criminal appeal from bench-trial conviction on four counts of wire fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1343); challenges to the indictment (unpreserved, plain error), sufficiency of the evidence and restitution rejected; affirmed (result: claimant-won)

  7. United States v. Boliaux 915 F.3d 493 (2019)

    criminal appeal from jury conviction on four counts of wire fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1343) and six of bank fraud; sufficiency challenge rejected by adopting the district court's Rule 29 analysis; duplicity/multiplicity arguments forfeited; affirmed (result: claimant-won)

  8. United States v. Buncich 926 F.3d 361 (2019)

    criminal appeal from jury convictions on five counts of honest-services wire fraud (18 U.S.C. §§ 1343, 1346) and one of § 666 bribery; Counts I-III reversed because the charged wire transfers were not proved, Counts IV-V affirmed on sufficiency; Rule 404(b) error harmless (result: mixed)

  9. United States v. Feldman 931 F.3d 1245 (2019)

    criminal appeal after retrial; jury conviction for conspiracy to commit wire fraud (18 U.S.C. §§ 1343, 1349) and money-laundering conspiracy; sufficiency upheld, constructive-amendment, double-jeopardy, due-process and sentencing challenges rejected; affirmed (result: claimant-won)

  10. United States v. Lebedev 932 F.3d 40 (2019)

    criminal appeal from jury conviction of wire fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1343), bank fraud and related conspiracy and corrupt-payment counts; Lebedev's sufficiency challenge rejected; affirmed (result: claimant-won)

  11. Pasquantino v. United States 544 U.S. 349 (2005)

    criminal; jury convictions for wire fraud (scheme to smuggle liquor into Canada without paying Canadian excise taxes); motion to dismiss indictment denied; CA4 panel reversed, en banc CA4 affirmed; certiorari on whether a plot to defraud a foreign government of tax revenue violates 1343 (result: claimant-won)

  12. Kousisis v. United States 605 U.S. 114 (2025)

    criminal; jury convictions on three wire fraud counts and a 1349 conspiracy (disadvantaged-business pass-through on two PennDOT painting contracts); judgment of acquittal denied, affirmed by CA3; certiorari on whether fraudulent inducement without intended net economic loss is wire fraud (result: claimant-won)