Nearly a decade after police officers dragged world soccer officials out of a luxury hotel in Zurich at dawn, revealing a
corruption scandal that rocked the world's most popular sport
, the case risks unraveling.
The dramatic turn comes in the wake of questions about whether U.S. prosecutors overstepped their bounds in applying U.S. law to a group of people, many of them foreigners, who defrauded foreign organizations while carrying out bribery schemes around the world.
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court
limited a law that was key to the case
.
Then, in September, a federal judge, citing that, threw out the convictions of two defendants linked to soccer corruption.
Now, several former soccer officials, including some who paid millions of dollars in fines and served prison terms, argue that the bribery schemes for which they were convicted are no longer considered a crime in the United States.
Emboldened by the overturned convictions,
they are asking to have their records expunged and their money returned
.
Their hopes are tied to the September cases, in which the two defendants benefited from two recent Supreme Court rulings that rejected federal prosecutors' application of the law at stake in the football cases and offered guidance unusual about what is known as honest services fraud.
The defendants in the football trial were found to have engaged in bribery that deprived organizations outside the United States of the honest services of their employees, which constituted fraud at the time.
But the judge ruled that the court's new guidelines meant those actions were no longer prohibited by U.S. law.
That blow to the case, which federal prosecutors in Brooklyn are challenging, could turn the story of deep-rooted corruption in world soccer (detailed in a 236-page indictment and demonstrated through 31 guilty pleas and four convictions at trial) in a story equally about the The long arm of American justice goes too far.
"It's pretty significant," said Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor and law professor at Columbia University, "because the judge rejected the government's basic theory."
He called the opinion "surprising but well-reasoned."
Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York are preparing to fight back.
"This office will vigorously defend the convictions," spokesman John Marzulli said Thursday, "and will not stand by if wrongdoers attempt to recover millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains."
In a court filing this month, prosecutors argued that the federal judge who presided over the FIFA cases, Pamela K. Chen, had misinterpreted the Supreme Court.
The foreign defendants, they said, had “substantial ties and activities with the United States” and had demonstrated that they knew what they were doing was a crime.
FIFA, a world of its own
The legal debate comes amid growing concern that global sports organizations such as FIFA, world soccer's governing body based in Switzerland, operate in a world of their own,
untouchable by authorities
.
Systemic corruption among world soccer's top leaders was widely documented, but until the Justice Department built its complex case and filed indictments in 2015, no government had risked confronting it in such an ambitious way, with indictments affecting three continents. .
Once public, the FIFA investigation became
one of the largest cross-border corruption cases in United States history
.
It required the cooperation of authorities abroad, who helped make arrests and extradite defendants to the United States, and revealed decades of bribery;
accusations of secret contracts, cash handovers and intimidation in court;
and official confirmation that millions of dollars in cash had influenced the votes to award the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar, respectively.
The case was a boon for white-collar lawyers and a shot across the bow of international sports.
It boosted the profile of U.S. prosecutors, praised for creatively enforcing the U.S. honest services wire fraud law, which prohibits people from betraying their employers by participating in bribery and kickback schemes that funnel money into their pockets.
The legal strategy was seen as a novel way to pursue foreign commercial bribery.
The charges led to an overhaul of FIFA's leadership, including the dismissal of its former president, Sepp Blatter, and turned key players in the case into celebrities.
Loretta Lynch, then attorney general of the United States, was nicknamed by the German media as FIFA-Jägerin, or the FIFA hunter.
Loretta Lynch, the United States attorney general who acted in the FIFA gate.
Photo: AP
This case was far from the first time the Justice Department brought complicated charges with global angles.
But its scope and enormous focus on other parts of the world raised questions about why federal prosecutors in Brooklyn had decided to invest years of resources into the investigation.
As justification, prosecutors pointed to the defendants' use of American banks and, more broadly, the “affront to international principles” that Lynch said his plans represented.
Now, as U.S. prosecutors prepare to defend their work before a federal appeals court, the idea that U.S. law could apply when others were unable or unwilling to act is in doubt.
That has opened the door to a dramatic possibility: that prominent sports officials and businessmen who have solicited or accepted bribes could have their convictions overturned and their fortunes recovered.
In an interview last week, former Paraguayan soccer official Juan Ángel Napout said he had been sentenced to set an example.
"Because I?"
he said.
"They needed someone and it was me."
Napout paid more than $4 million to the U.S. government, which has so far remitted more than $120 million in confiscated money to FIFA and pledged to release tens of millions more.
Back in Asunción, since he was released from prison last summer, Napout, 65, is asking the United States to overturn his conviction and return his money.
Napout was imprisoned longer than anyone else involved in the sprawling case;
His once lavish lifestyle changed when he became a cook in a Florida prison.
He said he had not considered an appeal until the acquittal hearing in September, and that he will proceed only at the urging of his family "so that my record is clean."
Even as the government's appeal of the recent acquittals is pending (an open question that must be resolved before Napout's request is addressed), he is not the only one taking the opportunity to wipe the slate clean.
Juan Ángel Napout, former Paraguayan leader, asks that his sentence be annulled and the money he paid be returned.
Photo: AFP
In recent weeks, José María Marín, a former Brazilian soccer official who also served prison time and paid millions in fines, and Alfredo Hawit, a former top Honduran soccer official who pleaded guilty and cooperated with the government, have made similar requests.
In their legal filings, they rehash some of the arguments made when they were first charged, when lawyers objected to what they called U.S. prosecutors' overuse of a vague law.
At the time, some emphasized that, in countries like Brazil, paying bribes in a private business transaction to secure an agreement or contract is not uncommon (or illegal).
As the legal fight continues, prominent adversaries in the case have moved forward.
The football organizations involved have new leaders.
In 2019, four years after Lynch issued a stern warning to figures not yet charged in the case – “They will not wait for us” – she joined the American law firm Paul, Weiss and became a promoter of the new FIFA.
At least twice in recent years, she has addressed FIFA directly and praised the organization's “renewed commitment to transparency and ethical behavior.”
But recently, FIFA has come under renewed scrutiny for circumventing standard processes, such as when it effectively awarded valuable 2034 World Cup hosting rights to Saudi Arabia without competitive bidding.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who was promoted after Blatter's ouster, has explored expanding the limits on his time in the top job.
The outcome of the new appeals, which will be heard before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, could have implications not only for convicted defendants like Mr. Napout, but also for those who were charged but have remained at large. safe and out of jail.
reach of US authorities.
They include influential FIFA veteran Jack Warner of Trinidad and Tobago;
the directors of Argentine television Hugo and Mariano Jinkis;
and former Brazilian football bosses Marco Polo del Nero and Ricardo Teixeira.
Also
at stake are at least $200 million paid by those convicted
;
A portion of that amount has been pledged to FIFA, which was deemed a victim of corruption in her own home, and has gone to causes including soccer 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 who now works at the law firm Wiggin and Dana, called the decision to acquit two defendants "a setback" but said that no matter what the appeals court decides, "you can't go back in time and erase the impact.”
Still, Tuchmann added, undoing the government's work would have wide-ranging consequences, inside and outside of global sport.
"People with some astuteness will understand that the United States criminal justice system is not going to touch them," he said.
"And I think it's unfortunate."