Second Circuit reinstates conviction of Fox executive in FIFA bribery case

MANHATTAN (CN) — A former Fox media executive is back on the hook for a sprawling scheme to bribe FIFA and other international soccer groups in exchange for broadcasting rights to tournaments including World Cup qualifiers and Copa América.

Six months after jurors found Hernan Lopez, the former CEO of Fox International Channels, guilty of wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy of wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy — along with the company Full Play Group S.A. — U.S. District Judge Pamela Chen overturned their convictions, citing fresh precedent in the U.S. Supreme Court that raised the bar for bribery prosecutions.

That was an error, a panel of Second Circuit judges ruled Wednesday, rejecting the Barack Obama appointee’s finding that foreign commercial bribery isn’t covered under a federal law defining a “scheme or artifice” to deprive someone of honest services.

After hearing the government’s appeal, the panel vacated Chen’s ruling and reinstated the guilty verdict, leaving it up to the lower court to determine whether, as the defendants argued on appeal, the government’s evidence didn’t prove a conspiracy.

“[W]e agree with the government and hold that [U.S. Code] 1346, as construed by the Supreme Court and this court, encompasses defendants’ conduct,” U.S. Circuit Judge John M. Walker Jr. wrote in the 32-page opinion.

During oral arguments Walker, a George H.W. Bush appointee, signaled his confusion over the trial judge’s decision to test the bounds of honest-services wire fraud in this particular case.

“It’s not clear to me why the district court did what she did,” Walker said. “I think what she was trying to do was anticipate … if this case goes to the Supreme Court, what are they going to do? And I know from my own personal experience that that’s a ruinous course of action.”

Still, according to Lopez’s trial attorney, that’s exactly where the case is headed next if the defendants get their way.

“The proceedings that resulted in Hernan’s conviction were afflicted with numerous defects. Today, the court of appeals ruled against us on one discrete legal issue — the same issue that we believe Judge Pamela Chen ruled on correctly when she acquitted our client after trial,” attorney John Gleeson of Debevoise & Plimpton said in a statement.

“We intend to seek review of that issue in the Supreme Court of the United States, and have no doubt that our client will eventually be fully vindicated.”

At the seven-week trial, prosecutors said Lopez and other executives paid millions in bribes and kickbacks to top soccer officials, gaining not only broadcasting rights but also insider information on bidding for other tournaments like the 2018 and 2022 World Cup tournaments.

Corruption in world soccer has been a hot topic for the past decade after a U.S.-led probe became public in 2015, shining a light on hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes and payoffs that led to dozens of indictments and convictions.

During oral arguments in January. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kaitlin Farrell said Chen granted the acquittals based on a “new, posttrial, bright-line rule that the jury was never instructed on.”

The Supreme Court ruling on which Chen based the acquittals, Percoco v. United States , involved a former aide to former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who was convicted in 2018 of taking bribes to influence the Cuomo administration’s rollout of a billion-dollar economic project nicknamed the “Buffalo Billion.”

Percoco brought his conviction to the Supreme Court, which acquitted him after finding that the jury was given improper instructions when mulling the wire fraud conspiracy count. The high court also overturned a similar conviction that stemmed from the same investigation, this time for Cuomo donor Louis Ciminelli, on similar grounds.

Farrell argued that neither case applied: “Neither case even dealt with private sector bribery, much less international bribery,” she told the circuit.

Walker was joined by U.S. Circuit Judges Beth Robinson and Sarah Merriam, both Joe Biden appointees.

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