Page:Percoco v. United States.pdf/7

4 case was submitted to the jury. Over defense counsel’s objection, the court instructed that Percoco could be found to have had a duty to provide honest services to the public during the time when he was not serving as a public official if the jury concluded, first, that “he dominated and controlled any governmental business” and, second, that “people working in the government actually relied on him because of a special relationship he had with the government.” 2 App. 511. The jury convicted Percoco on count 10, as well as two other charged counts relating to additional conduct, but acquitted him on the other charges. The court then denied Percoco’s motion for judgment of acquittal, and he was sentenced to 72 months’ imprisonment. 13 F. 4th, at 187–188.

On appeal, the Second Circuit affirmed. The court explained that the “fiduciary-duty [jury] instruction” given by the trial judge “fi[t] comfortably” with, and in fact restated, the understanding of honest-services fraud that the Second Circuit had adopted many years earlier in United States v. Margiotta, 688 F. 2d 108 (1982). See 13 F. 4th, at 194 (noting that Percoco and his co-defendants “seem to agree that the district court’s fiduciary-duty instruct[ion] falls within Margiotta”). Based on that precedent, the court also rejected Percoco’s claim that there was insufficient evidence to prove that he had “owed New York State a duty of honest services while he was managing the Governor’s campaign.” Id., at 201.

Percoco sought this Court’s review, asking us to decide whether a private citizen who “has informal political or other influence over governmental decisionmaking” can be convicted of honest-services fraud. Pet. for Cert. i. We granted certiorari. 597 U. S. ___ (2022).