(Miami) A US judge on Friday overturned the conviction of a former 21st Century Fox television executive who had been found guilty by a New York court of bribing South American soccer executives, an offshoot of the scandal ” FIFAgate”.
In a ruling late Friday, U.S. Judge Pamela Chen threw out Hernan Lopez’s conviction for wire fraud under a Supreme Court ruling.
In March, Hernan Lopez was found guilty by a New York court of fraud, laundering and paying bribes to FIFA and South American Football Confederation (Conmebol) officials. .
An Argentinian marketing company, Full Play, had also been found guilty on the same charges, but found to be a corporate entity corrupting leaders of the Confederation of North, Central and Caribbean American Football (Concacaf).
Mr. Lopez faced up to 40 years in prison and millions of dollars in fines, while the Full Play company faced a financial fine of millions of dollars.
These convictions were all overturned on Friday, the judge having argued that the other charges stemmed from the fraud conviction. This involved obtaining television broadcast rights for the Copa Libertadores and friendly and qualifying matches between national teams from the Americas for international competitions.
Ms. Chen felt that the evidence presented at the trial was not sufficient to convict the defendant of wire fraud.
Around 20 leaders were tried in the context of Fifagate, which shook football from 2015.
