Legal Definitions - compounding a crime

Compounding a crime refers to the illegal act of agreeing not to report, prosecute, or provide information about a known crime, or to conceal a crime or its perpetrator, in exchange for some form of benefit or valuable consideration. Essentially, it involves trading silence or inaction regarding a criminal offense for personal gain, thereby obstructing justice.

Here are some examples to illustrate this concept:

• Example 1: Financial Settlement for Silence

  A restaurant manager discovers that a chef has been regularly stealing expensive ingredients from the kitchen and reselling them. Instead of reporting the theft to the police, the manager agrees to keep quiet about the crime if the chef repays the estimated value of the stolen goods and also agrees to work an extra month without pay as "compensation" for the manager's silence. The manager knows a crime has occurred and accepts a benefit (repayment and free labor) in exchange for not pursuing legal action, which constitutes compounding a crime.

• Example 2: Concealing Evidence for a Favor

  A person witnesses their neighbor commit a serious act of vandalism against public property. The neighbor, upon realizing they were seen, offers to perform extensive, free landscaping work for the witness's yard if the witness promises not to tell the authorities what they saw and to delete any photos or videos they might have taken. The witness agrees to this arrangement. By agreeing to conceal the crime and destroy evidence in exchange for a valuable service, the witness is compounding a crime.

• Example 3: Business Advantage for Non-Disclosure

  A small business owner learns that a competitor has engaged in illegal price-fixing, a serious antitrust violation. The competitor approaches the business owner and offers to share proprietary customer lists and marketing strategies, which would give the small business a significant market advantage, if the owner agrees to remain silent about the price-fixing scheme. The business owner accepts the offer. Here, the owner knows a crime has been committed and agrees not to report it in exchange for a valuable business advantage, thereby compounding a crime.