Judge Vacates Convictions in Bribery Case Over Soccer Broadcast Deals

Less than six months after a federal jury convicted a former Fox worker and an Argentine sports activities advertising firm of taking part in a scheme to pay bribes in alternate for profitable soccer broadcasting contracts, a decide in Brooklyn vacated the convictions on Friday.

In a 55-page ruling, the decide, Pamela Ok. Chen, concluded that the federal wire fraud statute beneath which the defendants had been convicted didn’t apply to their actions.

In a seven-week trial that led to March, prosecutors alleged that Hernán López, who holds twin American and Argentine citizenship and who till 2016 labored for a unit of what was then often called twenty first Century Fox, had been a part of a scheme to make hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in secret annual funds to the presidents of nationwide soccer federations so as to safe the rights to 2 broadly considered South American soccer tournaments.

Mr. Lopez — who prosecutors additionally stated had leveraged loyalty he garnered via bribes to assist Fox beat out ESPN in its bid for the U.S. broadcasting rights for the 2018 and 2022 males’s World Cups — was convicted on one depend of cash laundering conspiracy and one depend of wire fraud conspiracy. He confronted as much as 40 years in jail.

Prosecutors stated that Mr. López’s co-defendant, the sports activities advertising firm Full Play Group, had paid bribes for the rights to a number of World Cup qualifiers, exhibition matches and tournaments. Full Play was convicted on six fraud and cash laundering counts and will have confronted stiff monetary penalties.

A key consider Judge Chen’s determination, handed down late Friday, was the scope of a legislation beneath which the defendants had been charged, often called the sincere companies wire fraud statute.

Judge Chen cited a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in May, during which the justices threw out two fraud convictions stemming from public corruption prosecutions throughout Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s administration in New York. In one of many instances, Percoco v. United States, the justices thought of whether or not a former aide to Mr. Cuomo might be prosecuted beneath a federal legislation that makes it a criminal offense to deprive the federal government of “honest services” for conduct that occurred after he left his authorities position.

In gentle of that call, and the absence of precedent making use of that legislation to bribery of overseas workers of overseas nongovernment employers, Judge Chen wrote in her ruling that she was compelled to “find that the honest services wire fraud statute does not encompass foreign commercial bribery as charged against defendants.”

“We are obviously pleased with Judge Chen’s thorough and correct decision,” John Gleeson, a lawyer for Mr. López, stated in a press release on Saturday.

Lawyers for Full Play wrote in a press release on Saturday that their shopper “greatly appreciates the court’s complete vindication.”

The case in Brooklyn was one in every of many spawned by a yearslong corruption investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice into worldwide soccer officers, which has led to greater than two dozen convictions and over $100 million in forfeitures.

Beyond the quick acquittals of Mr. López and Full Play, the ruling may have important implications for different defendants within the sprawling case. Two South American soccer officers had been convicted after the primary trial, in 2017, and will now search acquittals, and not less than 4 different defendants who’ve evaded extradition, together with the Argentine homeowners of Full Play, may see the fees towards them dropped. So far, the court docket has not spoken about these points.

John Marzulli, a spokesman for the U.S. lawyer’s workplace for the Eastern District of New York, stated on Saturday that the prosecutor’s workplace was reviewing the choice.