Supreme Court Narrows Anti-Corruption Law in Patrick Daley Thompson Case

The unanimous ruling overturns Thompson's conviction for misleading statements, sending the case back to lower courts to assess whether his statements were false.

The Supreme Court ruled that the federal anti-corruption law applies only to false statements, not misleading ones, in a unanimous decision authored by Chief Justice John Roberts.
Patrick Daley Thompson, a former Chicago alderman and member of the Daley political dynasty, was convicted in 2022 for making false statements to bank regulators and served a four-month prison sentence.
The case has been remanded to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals to determine whether Thompson's statements were false under the clarified legal standard.
Thompson's conviction stemmed from statements about loans totaling $219,000 from the now-defunct Washington Federal Bank for Savings, which he initially described as $110,000.
The ruling aligns with a broader Supreme Court trend of limiting expansive interpretations of federal criminal laws, particularly in cases involving public officials.