OPINION OF THE COURT
On this, direct appeal from the district court’s denial of defendant’s motion to dismiss the indictment on double jeopardy grounds
I.
In August 1988, the defendant Walter Esposito, along with nineteen others, was acquitted by a jury in United States v. Accetturo, Cr. No. 85-292, D.N.J. Esposito had been named in four counts of a twelve-count indictment. Count One charged him with a conspiracy, spanning from at least February 1976 until July 31, 1985, to violate the Racketeering Influenced and ' Corrupt Organization Act (RICO), in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(d). Count Two charged him with participation in a racketeering enterprise, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c). 1 In this Count, Esposito was specifically charged with four predicate acts: participating in a drug distribution conspiracy from 1977 to July 1985; cocaine distribution in November 1984; cocaine distribution in December 1984; and cocaine distribution in January 1985. Count Three charged him with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine and marijuana in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846, and Count Four charged him with distribution of cocaine in November 1984 in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and 18 U.S.C. § 2.
After the acquittal in the Accetturo case, a federal grand jury returned an indict-ment against Esposito in three counts alleging drug distribution in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) on three separate dates: (1) on or about December 5, 1984; (2) on or about December 20, 1984; and (3) on or about January 9, 1985. The government concedes that these counts were based on the transactions that supported predicate acts charged in Count Two of the earlier Accetturo indictment. Brief for Appellee at 6.
Esposito filed a motion to dismiss this second indictment, claiming that the proceeding violated principles of double jeopardy and collateral estoppel, and that it also constituted a vindictive prosecution that deprived him of due process. The district court denied Esposito’s motion, and Esposi-to filed this appeal limited to his contention that the second indictment violates the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
This court has jurisdiction over this appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Pretrial orders denying motions to dismiss the indictments on double jeopardy grounds “fall within the so-called ‘collateral order’ exception to the final-judgment rule first announced in
Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp.
[
II.
Esposito argues on appeal that the district court erred as a matter of law in rejecting his claim that this prosecution is barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause because of his acquittal on Counts One, Two, and Three of the earlier indictment.
2
There appear to be two prongs to his double jeopardy argument. He argues, first that this is an impermissible successive prosecution. In that connection, he argues that although a conviction may be used later as a predicate act in a substantive RICO claim without violating the Double Jeopardy Clause, as we held in
Grayson,
the reverse is not true; once a defendant has been acquitted on a RICO charge the government cannot later prosecute him on the underlying predicate acts. He also argues that this prosecution is barred under the legal principle that precludes a later prosecution on a lesser included offense when there has been an acquittal or conviction on a greater offense, and cites,
inter alia, Harris v. Oklahoma,
The double jeopardy issues raised in connection with prosecution for a compound predicate offense, such as racketeering under RICO or engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise (CCE) in violation of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, 21 U.S.C. § 848, do not fit precisely within the analytic lines used in other double jeopardy cases. Nonetheless, there is no exception from the Double Jeopardy Clause for complex statutory crimes.
See Jeffers v. United States,
Indeed, we recognize at the outset that Esposito’s prosecution on the substantive narcotics offenses which were listed as predicate acts in the earlier RICO indictment against him could implicate some of the concerns underlying the Double Jeopardy Clause, such as, for example, the need to protect a defendant from prosecutorial overreaching,
see Ohio v. Johnson,
Moreover, this is not a case where all the events necessary to the second prosecution had not taken place at the time of the first prosecution,
see Garrett,
Despite our unease about the turn of events presented by this case, we cannot translate it into a double jeopardy violation unless the two offenses for which Esposito has been charged are “the same offense,”
id.
at 150,
In this case, we do not face the issue of multiple punishments for the same offense because Esposito was acquitted in the first prosecution. Our inquiry therefore is limited to whether Esposito’s second prosecution offends the protection afforded by the Double Jeopardy Clause from later prosecution for the same offense after being acquitted.
When faced with a similar issue in a somewhat comparable situation, the Supreme Court directed the courts to undertake a two-step analysis.
See Garrett,
This court has previously considered whether Congress intended to allow successive prosecutions under RICO.
See United States v. Grayson,
Esposito argues that the fact that Congress intended to permit a subsequent prosecution for RICO following an earlier prosecution for a predicate act does not signify that Congress also intended that a prosecution for the predicate act could follow a RICO prosecution. However, nothing in the legislative history suggests that Congress intended RICO to be a substitute for the predicate offense; instead, that history unequivocably demonstrates Congress saw RICO as a new and additional enforcement tool.
Cf. Garrett,
The purpose behind RICO was to “seek the eradication of organized crime in the United States by strengthening the legal tools in the evidence-gathering process, by establishing new penal prohibitions, and by providing enhanced sanctions and new rem *64 edies to deal with the unlawful activities of those engaged in organized crime.” Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, Statement of Findings and Purpose, 84 Stat. 922, reprinted in 1970 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin. News 1073. The broad purpose behind the Act supports allowing two prosecutions, irrespective of the order in which they are brought.
Esposito argues that his prosecution for the substantive drug offenses is barred because it fails the
Blockburger
test in that “there is no element of the offense unique to
both
prosecutions.” Appellant’s Brief at 17. The Supreme Court has explained that the
Blockburger
test was developed “in the context of multiple punishments imposed in a single prosecution.”
Garrett,
Esposito’s argument based on
Blockburger
is inapposite because his acquittal on the RICO charge precludes more than one punishment. Moreover, “the
Blockburger
rule is not controlling when the legislative intent is clear from the face of the statute or the legislative history.”
See Garrett,
Inasmuch as we have concluded the first step inquiry and established that Congress intended to create separate offenses for the predicate acts and the substantive RICO charge, we are bound to decide whether the predicate offense is the “same offense” as the RICO charge within the meaning of the Double Jeopardy Clause. The Court’s recent decision in
Grady,
— U.S. -,
In
Grady,
the Court held that because the defendant, who was at fault in a car accident in which the driver of another vehicle was fatally injured, was convicted through a guilty plea of driving while intoxicated and failure to keep to the right of the median, the Double Jeopardy Clause barred his subsequent prosecution on manslaughter and assault charges arising out of the same accident. The Court, building upon its earlier decision in
Illinois v. Vitale,
Esposito argues that his prosecution on the substantive drug offenses is barred because he was charged in the earlier RICO case with the same distributions of cocaine which constitute Counts One, Two and Three of the present indictment. However, Esposito was not prosecuted for the narcotics violations but for participating in a racketeering enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity consisting of narcotics distributions. The “conduct” inquiry is distinct from an “evidence” inquiry.
The Court in
Grady
carefully eschewed adopting a “same evidence” or “actual evidence” test. Justice Brennan, writing for the majority, recognized that “[a] true ‘same evidence’ or ‘actual evidence’ test would prevent the government from introducing in a subsequent prosecution any evidence that was introduced in a preceding prosecution.”
Id.
at 2093 n. 12. He specifically stated the Court did not adopt that test, noting that the Court had already held in
Dowling v. United States,
— U.S. -,
Esposito’s argument that
Grady
is dis-positive in this case fails to take into account the Supreme Court’s holding in
Garrett,
Somewhat more analogous than
Grady
to the inquiry here is the well-established principle that collective criminal agreement is a separate criminal offense from individual delicts.
See Callanan v. United States,
Group association for criminal purposes often, if not normally, makes possible the attainment of ends more complex than those which one criminal could accomplish. Nor is the danger of a conspiratorial group limited to the particular end toward which it has embarked. Combination in crime makes more likely the commission of crimes unrelated to the original purpose for which the group was formed.
If the collective criminal agreement that is the hallmark of a conspiracy is sufficiently distinct from the substantive offense for double jeopardy purposes,
see Pinkerton v. United States,
In sum, while the same evidence may be presented against Esposito in both trials, he was not prosecuted in
Aceetturo
for the same conduct as that set forth in the indictment here, and hence
Grady
does not mandate a finding that this prosecution is barred by double jeopardy. A consequence of our conclusion that the prosecution for the RICO charge does not signify that defendant was prosecuted for the conduct constituting the predicate acts of racketeering activity,
see Grayson,
Esposito’s argument which relies on the ban for successive prosecutions for
*66
greater and lesser included offenses fares no better. In
Boffa,
In Grady, the Court, which focused on the successive prosecution concern, discussed lesser included offenses as follows:
Similarly, if in the course of securing a conviction for one offense the State necessarily has proved the conduct comprising all of the elements of another offense not yet prosecuted (a “component offense”), the Double Jeopardy Clause would bar subsequent prosecution of the component-offense. See Harris v. Oklahoma,433 U.S. 682 [97 S.Ct. 2912 ,53 L.Ed.2d 1054 ] (1977) (“When, as here, conviction of a greater crime, murder, cannot be had without conviction of the lesser crime, robbery with firearms, the Double Jeopardy Clause bars prosecution for the lesser crime after conviction of the greater one”) (footnote omitted); cf. Brown, [432 U.S.] at 168 [97 S.Ct. at 2226 ] (noting that it is irrelevant for the purposes of the Double Jeopardy Clause whether the conviction of the greater offense precedes the conviction of the lesser offense or vice-versa).
Grady,
It is evident that a predicate act included in a RICO indictment is not a lesser included offense of a substantive RICO charge for the reasons given above. Patently, each defendant in the
Accetturo
trial would not have been entitled to require the trial court to have charged the jury to consider as a lesser included offense option each of the 19 predicate acts alleged in Count II of the
Accetturo
indictment.
See
Fed.R.Crim.P. 31(c). In
Boffa,
we upheld the trial court’s refusal to give the lesser included offense charge on the Taft-Hart-ley violation which was the predicate act on a substantive RICO charge.
Boffa,
In effect, Esposito’s argument would interpose into the Double Jeopardy Clause a constitutional requirement that the prosecution must include in a compound offense indictment all of the possible charges on substantive offenses arising out of each of the predicate offenses. As a practical matter, this would make a RICO trial, which frequently is brought against multiple defendants and contains multiple counts, unwieldy. We have already stated that the government is “not required to make an election between seeking a conviction under RICO, or prosecuting the predicate offenses only.”
Grayson,
Of course, if the prosecutions were for the “same offense,” then the second prosecution would be barred irrespective of the sequence of prosecution.
See Jeffers,
III.
For the reasons set forth above, we will affirm the order of the district court denying Esposito’s motion to dismiss the indictment on double jeopardy grounds.
Notes
. Under RICO, it is unlawful "for any person employed by or associated with any enterprise engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce, to conduct or participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of such enterprise’s affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity or collection of unlawful debt." 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c). A "pattern of racketeering” requires at least two acts , of racketeering activity in a ten-year period. 18 U.S.C. § 1961(5). Racketeering activity is defined as activity that violates specified state laws or federal statutes. 18 U.S.C. § 1961(1).
.
Although Esposito’s brief focuses on Count II of the Accetturo indictment, the substantive RICO offense, he refers to three of the four counts on which he was indicted in his supplemental letters sent at the request of the court. As will be developed in the text hereafter, a prior conspiracy prosecution would impose no double jeopardy bar,
see Iannelli v. United States,
. The Fifth Amendment, applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, provides: "nor should any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb."
. We note with interest that in the more recent Supreme Court cases applying the lesser included offense doctrine the defendant had been
convicted
in the first proceeding,
see, e.g., Harris v. Oklahoma,
