52
OCTOBER TERM, 1997
Syllabus
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the fifth circuit
No. 96-738. Argued October 8, 1997—Decided December 2, 1997
This federal prosecution arose from a scheme in which a Texas county sheriff accepted money, and his deputy, petitioner Salinas, accepted two watches and a truck, in exchange for permitting women to make so-called "contact visits" to one Beltran, a federal prisoner housed in the county jail pursuant to an agreement with the Federal Government. Salinas was charged with one count of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U. S. C. § 1962(c), one count of conspiracy to violate RICO, § 1962(d), and two counts of bribery, § 666(a)(1)(B). The jury convicted him on all but the substantive RICO count, and the Fifth Circuit affirmed.
Held:
1. Section 666(a)(1)(B) does not require the Government to prove the bribe in question had a demonstrated effect upon federal funds. The enactment's plain language is expansive and unqualified, both as to the bribes forbidden and the entities covered, demonstrating by its reference to "any" business or transaction, § 666(a)(1)(B), that it is not confined to transactions affecting federal funds; by its application to all cases in which an "organization, government, or agency" receives a spec-ified amount of federal benefits, § 666(b), that it reaches the scheme involved here; and by its prohibition on accepting "anything of value," § 666(a)(1)(B), that it encompasses the transfers of personal property to petitioner in exchange for his favorable treatment of Beltran. Given the statute's plain and unambiguous meaning, petitioner is not aided by the legislative history, see, e. g., United States v. Albertini, 472 U. S. 675, 680, or by the plain-statement rule set forth in Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U. S. 452, 460-461, and McNally v. United States, 483 U. S. 350, 360, see, e. g., Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U. S. 44, 57, n. 9. Moreover, the construction he seeks cannot stand when viewed in light of the pre-§ 666 statutory framework—which limited federal bribery prohibitions to "public official[s]," defined as "officer[s] or employee[s] or person[s] acting for or on behalf of the United States, or any branch thereof," and which was interpreted by some lower courts not to include state and local officials—and the expansion prescribed by § 666(a)(1)(B), which was designed to extend coverage to bribes offered to state and local officials employed by agencies receiving federal funds. Under this
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