Nissan’s Ghosn gone, American Kelly faces Japan trial alone

TOKYO » His boss Carlos Ghosn escaped financial misconduct charges by fleeing the country, but another former Nissan executive is still awaiting trial in Japan: Greg Kelly.

Kelly’s trial in Tokyo Dis- Nissan’s U.S. division trict Court is to open Sept. hired Kelly, who has a law 15, nearly two years after degree, in 1988. He became his arrest, and the same day a representative director he turns 64 . If convicted of in 2012, the first American charges related to alleged on Nissan’s board. Kelly under-reporting of Ghosn’s worked in legal counsel income, Kelly could face up and human resources at the to a decade in prison. company. He was arrested

Even if acquitted, he has in November 2018, upon his already paid a heavy price, arrival from the U.S. in Japan, unable to leave Japan and thinking he was going go home to Tennessee while to attend Nissan meetings. out on bail. He has yet to see Kelly has not been charged his newborn grandchild. His with breach of trust allegations wife got a student visa to that Ghosn is facing, stay with him in Tokyo. which center around suspected

Kelly, like Ghosn, says he use of Nissan money is innocent. for personal purposes, including

Tokyo prosecutors say fancy homes. Ghosn’s Kelly and Ghosn, the former lawyers have argued the chairman of Nissan properties were needed for Motor Co., violated financial work, and contend that such laws by under-reporting questions could have been Ghosn’s pay by about raised internally at the company 9 billion yen ($85 million) and did not require from 2011 through 2018. prosecution.

Jamie Wareham, Kelly’s Tokyo Deputy Chief Prosecutor lawyer in the U.S., says Hiroshi Yamamoto said a compensation agreement the preparations for Kelly’s was never finalized. He believes trial took a long time because the real motive was of the massive amounts of evidence a “corporate coup” to oust involved. Ghosn by others at Nissan “We feel we have a solid who feared he might engineer case with ample evidence to a takeover by its French win a guilty verdict,” Yamamoto alliance partner, Renault. told reporters recently.

“The whole thing is a Wareham, Kelly’s counsel, fraud,” Wareham told The said prosecutors have Associated Press by phone. sent the equivalent of a billion

Ghosn could have been a pages of documents, star witness for the defense. mostly in English, that But he is gone, having fled to can only be examined on a Lebanon late last year, hidden computer at the Tokyo legal in a box aboard a private jet. team’s office. They have yet

“He is frustrated. He is to hand over more than 70 upset,” Wareham said of 7-inch-size boxes full of material Kelly. “He has been abused marked as evidence, from the beginning by the with only two weeks left before Japanese system.” the trial opens.

Carlos Ghosn

Greg Kelly