The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act is a law well-known enough to inspire T-shirts.

“A Freako Is Not a RICO” was the slogan emblazoned on shirts worn by supporters of the hip-hop mogul Sean Combs outside the Manhattan courthouse where jurors on Wednesday rejected the government’s arguments that his ritualized drug-fueled sex marathons, or “freak-offs,” were part of an organized lawbreaking operation.

But former prosecutors and other lawyers who have followed Mr. Combs’s case said his acquittal on a federal RICO conspiracy charge, which carried a potential sentence of life in prison, was an aberration and unlikely to discourage the authorities from continuing to rely on the 1970 statute.

The law is best known for helping dismantle criminal syndicates, like the Mafia, but has been employed against an ever-expanding variety of criminal groups, including violent street gangs and narcotics traffickers.

Since the #MeToo movement, RICO has been used to prosecute high-profile men for sexual abuse. In 2019, Keith Raniere, the leader of the Nxivm sex cult, was convicted in Brooklyn federal court on charges of conspiring in a racketeering enterprise that victimized women through sex trafficking. Two years later, R. Kelly, the R&B artist, was convicted in the same court on charges that he participated in a decades-long racketeering scheme to recruit women and underage girls for sex.

In addition to the racketeering conspiracy charge, Mr. Combs was acquitted on two counts of sex trafficking, which also carried potential life sentences. He was convicted on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution; each carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.