# The hierarchy of charges > **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou. > > Cite as: "The hierarchy of charges," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-hierarchy-of-charges/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *How federal prisoners ranked one another by offence, in John Kiriakou's account — RICO at the top, usually with a murder conspiracy attached; wealthy white-collar convicts despised as soft; and arson, insurance fraud and mortgage fraud attracting no interest at all.* - **Most respected:** RICO — "and RICO usually had murder attached to it" - **Why RICO carried murder:** Conspiracy charges sweep in everyone party to a killing - **Least liked:** Big rich white-collar criminals - **The reason:** Class contempt — they were seen as soft - **Nobody cared about:** Arson, insurance fraud, mortgage fraud - **The test applied to arson:** "Did you kill anybody? No. Okay, nobody cares." - **Unusual case:** A man convicted of property fraud for forging the deed to a golf course **The hierarchy of charges** is John Kiriakou's account of how prisoners at [FCI Loretto](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/fci-loretto) ranked each other by what they had been convicted of, given on the DeProgram programme in July 2025 in answer to a viewer asking whether some crimes carried more standing than others.[1] ## The top Asked which charge was most respected, Kiriakou answered in one word, twice: *"RICO. RICO."*[1] His explanation is that the statute functions as a proxy for something else. *"RICO usually had murder attached to it. Usually it was conspiracy to commit murder, because a guy will murder somebody and then 20 people will get charged for it because they're all part of the conspiracy."*[2] The respect, in other words, attached less to the racketeering statute than to the killing it implied — and to the organisational membership that produced the conspiracy count in the first place, a status separately recorded in [the -47 suffix](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-forty-seven-suffix) on a prisoner's number. ## The bottom of the free-standing scale Below the ranked offences sat a set that nobody bothered to rank. *"The only guys where nobody gave a shit was like arson,"* Kiriakou says. *"I knew three arsonists and people were like, 'Eh, arson.' Did you kill anybody? No. Okay, nobody cares."* He puts insurance fraud and mortgage fraud in the same indifferent category.[3] One case in that bracket he had never encountered before: a man convicted of *"property fraud"*, who *"just forged papers transferring ownership of a golf course to himself and then he tried to charge people rent."*[3][4] ## Contempt for the rich The active dislike was reserved for a different group. *"I'll tell you who they didn't like. They didn't like these big rich white-collar criminals,"* Kiriakou says.[2] Asked whether the objection was that such men were soft, he agreed — *"yeah, soft"* — and gave the sentiment in the voice of the men who held it: *"Oh, you thought you were going to get away with it. Poor you. You got caught and now it's like, 'Oh, I'm in prison. Oh my god.'"*[2][3] Offered the summary that this was a class judgement, Kiriakou accepted it without qualification: *"It's a class thing."*[3] The ranking sits alongside the one he gives elsewhere in the same conversation for the [sex offenders and informants](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/chomo) at the bottom of the prison's social order, and the [Italians](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/italians-at-loretto) at the top of it.[5] ## See also - [The forty-seven suffix](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-forty-seven-suffix) - [The Italians at Loretto](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/italians-at-loretto) - [Chomo](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/chomo) - [Prison racial segregation](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/prison-racial-segregation) - [FCI Loretto](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/fci-loretto) ## Sources 1. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-07-25), at 1:02:26. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RypVxybJzHo&t=3746s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-07-25-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 2. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-07-25), at 1:02:56. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RypVxybJzHo&t=3776s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-07-25-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 3. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-07-25), at 1:03:27. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RypVxybJzHo&t=3807s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-07-25-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 4. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-07-25), at 1:03:58. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RypVxybJzHo&t=3838s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-07-25-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 5. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-07-25), at 1:00:22. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RypVxybJzHo&t=3622s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-07-25-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-hierarchy-of-charges/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt