ring activity. The statute defines "pattern of racketeering activity" as at least two acts of racketeering activity which occur within ten years of each other. 18 U.S.C. ยง 1961(5). The Third Circuit has held that a civil plaintiff did not show this element in alleging a series of mailings concerning a deceptive promise to lend capital to a company which needed the capital to obtain further financing. The court said that the relevant act was the deceit itself (the promise to lend the certain sum of capital), not the individual mailings which supported this deceit. The deceptive promise was only a single act, and not part of a pattern of racketeering. Kehr Packages v. Fidelcor, Inc., 926 F.2d 1406 (3d Cir. 1991), cert. denied, 501 U.S. 1222 (1991). The Supreme Court has held that the definition of at least two acts is flexible in application and that a showing of more than two acts may be necessary to establish a pattern. H.J. Inc. v. Northwestern Bell Telephone, 492 U.S. 229 (1989).
In this case, there appears to have been at least two acts, the secret substitution of domestic wool for imported Irish wool and the concealment of losses in the financial reports to the shareholders. Both of these acts were undertaken in an effort to prevent the decline of the company's stock price and both were intended to deceive existing and potential shareholders. All of the other elements exist: Murphy Corp. is certainly an enterprise engaged in interstate commerce; Patricia Murphy willfully committed the racketeering activit
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