US: Lottery boss loses

The US offence of mail fraud is a strange thing: it amounts to committing an ordinary fraud - but using the mail. It's all to do with the ancient (in US terms) need to secure the US Mail - and to prevent it being used for nefarious purposes. Actually, the underlying offence will, in most cases, have nothing to do with the mail at all. In effect, it's adding a charge of "using state sponsored organs in the commission of a crime."

Geddings' particular offence seems strange to prosecute in this way - he took the job as North Carolina's Lottery Commissioner having received payment for employment with a company called Scientific Games. There has not been any suggestion that he did anything other than proper work for SG and no overt accusation of any favours he had given them once his new post started.

His payment, over a period, was around USD250,000.

It fell to be classified as mail fraud because he submitted his application for his position by mail and did not disclose the payment, resulting in the application being considered without a material fact and therefore he obtained a position - and therefore payment from the State Lottery Board - that he would not have otherwise obtained.

In the UK, he would have been charged with the simpler "obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception." One wonder what the US would have charged him with if he had simply hand-delivered the application.