Official from Peru acquitted in FIFA trial
Manuel Burga, the former top soccer official of Peru, was acquitted Tuesday in federal court in New York City in a trial involving three global soccer leaders accused of corrupting the sport by participating in a vast network of bribes and kickbacks.
The two other men on trial were convicted Friday, when the jury delivered a partial verdict, unable to reach a unanimous decision regarding the one count against Burga.
› Juan Ángel Napout of Paraguay, the former top soccer official of South America who was accused of accepting $10.5 million in bribes since 2010, was found guilty on three counts of racketeering conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy. He was found not guilty on two counts of money laundering conspiracy.
› José Maria Marin, the former top soccer official of Brazil who was accused of accepting $6.55 million, was found guilty on six counts of racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy. He was found not guilty on one count of money laundering conspiracy.
Early in the trial, prosecutors claimed that Burga had tried to intimidate the government’s star witness by making throat-slitting gestures at him. Burga’s lawyer attributed the gestures to a skin condition that made his client’s neck itch.
The men on trial were the few in the case who actively fought the charges against them. More than 20 of their accused co-conspirators had pleaded guilty as a result of the investigation run by the Justice Department out of the Eastern District of New York in coordination with the FBI and the IRS.
The government believes that power brokers in global soccer laundered hundreds of millions of dollars, much of it through the United States, as they diverted money from the sport and into their own pockets.
The schemes, federal prosecutors said, involved the corruption of lucrative broadcast and marketing rights deals for tournaments like the World Cup.
Burga was charged with racketeering conspiracy and accused of having plotted to collect $4.4 million in bribes. Prosecutors acknowledged he had not collected that money he solicited, unlike the officials with whom he stood trial.