Bail tightened for official in soccer case
New York — A judge tightened bail conditions on a South American soccer official charged in the FIFA bribery scandal after prosecutors surprised the courtroom by accusing the defendant of threatening their star witness by making a slashing motion on his neck as the witness testified at trial.
The dramatic twist in federal court in New York came after Alejandro Burzaco, a former marketing executive from Argentina, spent the day accusing Manuel Burga and two other soccer official codefendants of taking bribes in exchange for their help securing broadcasting and hosting rights for tournaments.
Burzaco testified that his firm gave Burga, the former president of Peru’s soccer federation, $3.6 million in bribes during the course of their relationship. He claimed that when he agreed in 2015 to cooperate against officials charged in the case he became the target of death threats.
After news of Burzaco’s cooperation broke in Argentina, his brother, a former law enforcement officer, called him with inside information that authorities there had received “an instruction to shut me down,” he testified, choking back tears. That meant something needed to be done “for me not to say anything in the U.S., including killing me,” he added.
Once Burzaco concluded his testimony and the jury had gone home for the day, prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Pamela Chen to jail Burga, saying he had left Burzaco visibly shaken by twice staring at him and using the slashing motion. A lawyer for Burga claimed his client was merely scratching his throat.
The judge stopped short of locking up Burga, instead cutting off his access of phones and computers and placing him under house arrest at a home in Brooklyn. Burga already had been on GPS monitoring but had some privileges to leave the home.
The judge said that while one security video of the courtroom was inconclusive, she would return to it on Thursday after reviewing a second tape prosecutors say backs up their claim.
“All the facts surrounding this give me grave concerns,” the judge said.
Earlier Wednesday, Burzaco testified that media giants Globo, of Brazil, and Televisa, of Mexico, teamed with a marketing firm to make a $15 million bribe to a FIFA executive to help them secure lucrative broadcasting rights to the World Cup in 2026 and 2030.
Burzaco said that the deal was struck with longtime FIFA finance committee chairman Julio Grondona at a 2013 meeting in Zurich. He also has implicated Fox Sports in a separate bribery scheme. Fox, Globo and Televisa have denied any wrongdoing, and none of them is charged in the case.