In the case linked above, Paul Boghosian, the lead investor in one of two competing reorganization plans for Hawaiian Airlines, was arrested after he allegedly agreed to pay a $500,000 bribe to an FBI agent posing as a hedge fund manager in exchange for a $2.5 million loan.
Boghosian and partners pledged $300M of new capital to reorganize HA, but supposedly did not have that amount of capital available. An FBI agent arranged a meeting, posing as a hedge fund manager, and the FBI agent requested the bribe. Boghosian was then arrested when he met with the agent to arrange payment.
To me, it sounds like this fits Bricker’s definition: The FBI arranged the opportunity for the crime, requested the accused’s participation in it, and then arrested him. Is this correct?
One thing I didn’t comment on in that definition is an exception to the entrapment rule: if the police can show you were ready to commit the crime anyway, then you may not claim entrapment. A defendant who claims that he was entrapped is vulnerable to a “…searching inquiry into his own conduct and predisposition as bearing upon that issue.” Sorrells v. US, 287 U.S. 435 (1932).
I assume that the FBI is going to present evidence that the defendent solicited other bribe opportunities or paid other bribes in similar cirucmstances, and was thus predisposed to committing the extant crime.