A Brooklyn judge got it wrong when she tossed the convictions of a onetime, high-ranking 21st Century Fox executive and a sports marketing company involved in a bribery scheme to snag broadcasting rights from FIFA, the worldwide soccer governing body, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.
In a 32-page ruling, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned U.S. District Court Judge Pamela Chen’s decision to clear Hernan Lopez, the former chief executive officer of Fox International Channels, and co-defendant Full Play sports marketing.
A jury convicted Lopez and Full Play after a seven-week-long trial in March 2023, finding them guilty of wire fraud and money laundering charges for taking part in a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme to secure broadcasting rights for South American soccer matches.
Just five months later, Chen overturned that conviction, citing a Supreme Court ruling in the case of Joseph Percoco, a onetime top aide to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in which he was cleared on a conviction for accepting a bribe while working on the governor’s campaign. Chen said the decision meant “honest services wire fraud statute does not encompass foreign commercial bribery as charged against defendants.”
Federal prosecutors appealed Chen’s ruling in January, arguing that the judge “misread” the Percoco decision. On Wednesday, the Second Circuit agreed.
“[The] Percoco [decision] considered fiduciary duties under [the honest services fraud law] in the context of duties to the public, specifically in the unique context where the defendant did not actually hold public office…. It did not address commercial actors or employment relationships like those at issue here,” the three-judge panel wrote.
“The nature of Defendants’ conduct (bribery), coupled with the character of the relationship between the bribed officials and the organizations to whom they owed a duty of loyalty (employer-employee relationships), place the schemes presumptively within the scope of [the law].”
A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella declined comment Wednesday.
Lopez’s lawyer, John Gleeson, said he plans to appeal to the Supreme Court, and has “no doubt that our client will eventually be fully vindicated.”
“We are obviously disappointed with the Second Circuit’s decision,” Gleeson said. “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.”
