Two cases involving Gambling Corruption ranked on the WSJ's Top Ten list, Blagojevich of Illinois and Dimora of Ohio.
Corruption Currents Anniversary Extra: Top 10 Corruption Sentences
By Samuel Rubenfeld
- Muhammed Muheisen/Associated Press
Wednesday marks the second anniversary of Corruption Currents, and we thought you should celebrate with us. After another year of covering graft all over the world, we’ve compiled the top 10 corruption-related jail sentences.
The main criteria for the list was to have been convicted or pleaded guilty to a graft-related offense and to have received a lengthy prison term for it.
1. Joel Esquenazi
Esquenazi, the former president of Terra Telecommunications Corp., received the longest prison sentence in the history of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. He received 15 years in jail in October 2011 for his role in a scheme to bribe officials at the Haiti state-owned telecoms company. Esquenazi and his co-defendant are appealing before the 11th Circuit.
2. Rod Blagojevich
Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich made last year’s list of top convictions, but he had yet to be sentenced. In December 2011, Chicago federal Judge James Zagel sentenced Blago to 14 years in prison. The a one-time rising star in the Democratic party, whose media-driven defense included stints on reality TV and a book tour, was convicted on 18 counts of corruption.
3. Viktor Bout
The suspected Russian arms dealer whose exploits inspired a Nicolas Cage movie was sentenced in April 2012 to 25 years in prison and ordered to forfeit $15 million. He was found guilty in November 2011 of conspiring to sell weapons to government informants during a U.S. sting operation in Thailand in which prosecutors said he thought he was selling missiles and other weapons to members of a Colombian rebel group.
4. James Ibori
Ibori started his adult life out as a cashier in a hardware store in the U.K., rose to be a state governor in Nigeria and fell to a 13-year prison sentence back in the U.K. in April 2012. He pleaded guilty in February to 10 counts relating to conspiracy to launder funds from the state he governed and other charges. U.K. police estimate Ibori siphoned off as much as $250 million in state assets, but he only admitted to fraud over GBP50 million.
5. R. Allen Stanford
The “mini-Madoff,” a billionaire whose flamboyant lifestyle included yachts, jets and homes around the world, Stanford was sentenced in June 2012 to 110 years in prison following a conviction in March on charges relating to his operating a $7 billion Ponzi scheme. Stanford’s lawyers had sought a sentence of only 10 years.
6. Jimmy Dimora
Dimora, a former Ohio county official, was sentenced to 28 years in prison in July 2012 after being convicted of racketeering, bribery, conspiracy and other charges. He took more than $166,000 worth of bribes in the form of cash, home improvements, lavish meals, service from sex workers, gambling trips and other items, according to court documents.
7. Matthew Ng
Ng, a Chinese-born Australian citizen, was sentenced to 13 years behind bars by a Chinese court in December 2011 on bribery charges. The case had diplomatic implications, as The Wall Street Journal had reported at the time that his case was brought up at bilateral talks involving Australian government ministers.
8. Albert “Jack” Stanley and Jeffrey Tesler
Stanley, who used to be the head of KBR Inc KBR -0.70%., was sentenced in February 2012 to 30 months in prison and three months of supervised release for his role in a decade-long, $182 million bribery scheme to get $6 billion in contracts from Nigeria to build liquefied natural-gas facilities. Tesler, the middleman in the scheme who admitted to handling and paying more than $130 million in bribes, was sentenced to 21 months in prison and forfeited $149 million.
9. Jean Rene Duperval
Duperval, a former director of international relations for Haiti’s state-owned telecoms company, was sentenced in May 2012 to nine years in prison in the U.S. after being convicted in March for laundering bribes paid to him by Miami-based companies. He was also ordered to forfeit the $500,000 in bribes he was accused of taking from the two companies.
10. Gerhard Gribkowsky
Gribkowsky, the former chief risk officer of German lender BayernLB, was sentenced in June 2012 for taking $44 million in bribes from Formula One mogul Bernie Ecclestone in connection with the sale of a stake in the motor racing franchise. He was convicted in a Munich court on charges of tax evasion, bribery and embezzlement after admitting to all of it.
http://blogs.wsj.com/corruption-currents/2012/09/20/corruption-currents-anniversary-extra-top-10-corruption-sentences/
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