US judge throws out two soccer bribery convictions

NEW YORK : A U.S. judge has thrown out the convictions of a former Fox executive and an Argentine sports marketing company for attempting to bribe soccer officials in exchange for lucrative broadcasting contracts.

In a Friday night decision, U.S. District Judge Pamela Chen in Brooklyn said the March 9 convictions of Hernan Lopez and Full Play Group could not stand because the federal law governing honest services wire fraud did not cover foreign commercial bribery.

She said the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on May 11 to throw out the unrelated corruption conviction of Joseph Percoco, a onetime aide to former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, had put new limits on when the fraud law could be applied.

"None of the government's appeals to common law, state law, civil law, foreign law, or codes of conduct, overcome the basic fact that there is no precedential authority to support the application of this federal criminal statute ... to foreign commercial bribery," Chen wrote in a 55-page decision.

The judge also voided Lopez's and Full Play's money laundering convictions, because they were predicated on the fraud convictions.

A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Breon Peace in Brooklyn on Saturday said the office was reviewing the decision.

David Sarratt, a lawyer for Lopez, said: "We are obviously pleased with Judge Chen's thorough and correct decision. We have never stopped believing in our client's innocence."

A lawyer for Full Play had no immediate comment.

Lopez and Full Play were among more than 40 defendants to be criminally charged since the U.S. Department of Justice in 2015 unveiled a sweeping probe into soccer corruption, including at FIFA, the sport's world governing body.

At least 31 people and corporate entities pleaded guilty,