FIFA convictions are jeopardized by questions about the US overreach

Nearly a decade after police officers marched world football officials out of a luxury Zurich hotel at dawn, exposing a corruption scandal that rocked the world's most popular sport, the case is in danger of falling apart.

The dramatic twist comes amid questions about whether U.S. prosecutors went too far in applying U.S. law to a group of people, many of them foreigners, who defrauded foreign organizations while carrying out bribery schemes. over the world.

The U.S. Supreme Court last year limited a law crucial to the case. In September, citing that, a federal judge threw out the convictions of two defendants in connection with football corruption. Now several former football officials, including some who have paid millions of dollars in fines and served time in prison, are claiming that the bribery schemes for which they were convicted are no longer considered a crime in the United States.

Encouraged by the released convictions, they are asking for their data to be erased and their money returned.

Their hopes are linked to the September cases, in which the two defendants took advantage of two recent Supreme Court rulings that had rejected federal prosecutors' application of the law in the football cases and provided rare clues into what is known as fraud involving honest services. The defendants in the football trial were found to have committed bribery that deprived organizations outside the US of the honest services of their employees, which at the time constituted fraud. But the judge ruled that the court's new guidelines meant these actions were no longer prohibited under US law.

That blow to the case, which federal prosecutors in Brooklyn are contesting, could turn the story of world soccer's deep-rooted corruption — detailed in a 236-page indictment, and proven by 31 guilty pleas and four trial convictions — into one that equally concerns about the long arm of American justice that reaches too far.

“It's quite significant,” said Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor and law professor at Columbia University, “since the judge rejected the government's basic theory.” He called the advice 'surprising but well-founded'.

Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York are preparing to push back. “This office will vigorously defend the convictions,” a spokesman, John Marzulli, said Thursday, “and will not sit on the sidelines as the offenders attempt to recover the millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains.”

In a lawsuit filed this month, prosecutors argued that the federal judge presiding over FIFA's cases, Pamela K. Chen, misread the Supreme Court. The foreign defendants, they said, had “substantial ties and activities with the U.S.” and had shown they knew what they were doing was a crime.

The legal debate comes amid growing concerns that global sports organizations such as FIFA, the global football governing body headquartered in Switzerland, operate in a world of their own, untouchable by authorities. So was the systemic corruption among global football's top leaders widely documentedBut until the Justice Department built its complex case and filed charges in 2015, no government had risked taking on the case so ambitiously, with charges touching three continents.

Once the FIFA investigation became public, it became one of the largest cross-border corruption cases in American history. It took cooperation from authorities abroad, who helped make arrests and extradite suspects to the United States, and this was revealed decades of bribery; allegations of secret contracts, money drops and courtroom intimidation; and official confirmation that millions of dollars in cash influenced the votes to award the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar.

The case was a boon for white-collar lawyers and a bull's-eye for international sports. It boosted the profiles of U.S. prosecutors, who were praised for creatively applying the U.S. Honest Services Fraud Act, which bars people from betraying their employers by engaging in bribery and kickback schemes that funnel money into their own pockets. The legal strategy was widely seen as a new way to tackle foreign commercial bribery.

The allegations led to a review of FIFA's leadership, including the ouster of former president Sepp Blatter, and made celebrities key players in the case. Loretta Lynch, then the attorney general of the United States, was nicknamed FIFA-Jägerin, or the FIFA Hunter, by the German news media.

The case was far from the first time the Justice Department brought complex charges with global angles. But its scope and excessive focus on other parts of the world raised questions about why federal prosecutors in Brooklyn had chosen to pour money into the investigation for years. As justification, prosecutors pointed to the defendants' use of U.S. banks and, more broadly, the “affront to international principles” that Ms. Lynch said their plans represented.

As U.S. prosecutors prepare to defend their work before a federal appeals court, the idea that U.S. law could apply where others have been unable or unwilling to act is in question. That has opened the door to a dramatic possibility: that prominent sports officials and businessmen found to have solicited or accepted bribes could have their convictions set aside and their fortunes restored.

In an interview last week, former Paraguayan football official Juan Ángel Napout said he had been sentenced to lead by example. “Why me?” he said. “They needed someone, and that was me.”

Mr. Napout paid more than $4 million to the United States government, which has so far transferred more than $120 million in forfeited money to FIFA and has promised to release tens of millions more. Back home in Asunción Since his release from prison last summer, the 65-year-old Mr. Napout the US to vacate his conviction and return his money.

Mr. Napout was held longer than anyone else involved in the sprawling case. His once luxurious lifestyle was turned upside down when he became a chef in a Florida prison. He said he had not considered an appeal until he heard about the acquittals in September, and that he is only acting at the insistence of his family “so that my record will be clean.”

Even as the government has appealed the recent acquittals — an open question that must be resolved before hearing Mr. Napout's request — he is not alone in seizing the opportunity to seek a clean slate.

In recent weeks, José Maria Marin, a former Brazilian soccer official who has also served time in prison and paid millions in fines, and Alfredo Hawit, a former top soccer official from Honduras who pleaded guilty and cooperated with the government, have filed similar requests.

In their legal filings, they repeat some of the arguments they made when they were first charged, when lawyers objected to what they called U.S. prosecutors' overzealous use of a vague law. At the time, some emphasized that paying a bribe in a private business transaction to secure a deal or contract in countries like Brazil is not unusual or illegal.

As the legal battle continues, prominent opponents in the case have moved forward. The football organizations involved have new leaders. In 2019, four years after Ms. Lynch issued a stern warning to unindicted figures in the case – “You will not wait us out” – she joined the US law firm Paul, Weiss and became a driving force behind the new FIFA. . She has addressed FIFA directly at least twice in recent years, praising the organization's “renewed commitment to transparency and ethical conduct.”

Ms. Lynch did not respond to a request for comment.

But recently, FIFA has come under renewed scrutiny for bypassing standard processes, such as when it effectively awarded the valuable hosting rights for the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia without competitive bidding. FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who rose to power after Blatter's ouster, has tested the limits of his time in the top job.

The outcome of the new appeals, which are to be argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, could impact not only convicted defendants like Mr. Napout, but also those who have been charged but remain at large, safely outside of prison. reach of the American authorities. They include longtime FIFA power broker Jack Warner of Trinidad and Tobago; Argentine television executives Hugo and Mariano Jinkis; and former Brazilian football chiefs Marco Polo del Nero and Ricardo Teixeira.

There is also at least $200 million at stake, paid by the convicts; some of it has been pledged to FIFA, which was seen as a victim of corruption at home, and earmarked for charities including football programs for women, youth and the disabled. FIFA said $50 million had already been allocated to projects.

Paul Tuchmann, a former prosecutor in the case now at law firm Wiggin and Dana, called the decision acquitting two defendants “a hiccup,” but said that whatever the appeals court decides, “you can't go back in time and erase impact.”

Still, Mr Tuchmann added, undoing the government's work would have wide-ranging consequences – within global sport and beyond.

“People with a certain amount of cunning will understand that the American criminal justice system will not touch them,” he said. “And that disappoints me.”

Ken Bensinger reporting contributed.