Federal prosecutors do not violate the federal anti-gratuity statute through the practice of using paid informants to gather information and then calling them as witnesses at trial, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.
Although the anti-gratuity statute bars “whoever” from giving “anything of value to any person” for his testimony, the court found that Congress clearly did not mean to include the United States in that definition since such a reading of the law would lead to “absurd” results.
