'It could be catastrophic': Woman says natural supplement contained hidden painkiller drug
A Manitoba woman thought she found a miracle natural supplement, but said a hidden ingredient wreaked havoc on her health.
A former Fox executive was convicted Thursday of paying tens of millions of dollars in bribes to nab broadcasting rights to the World Cup and other top soccer matches. A second ex-executive was acquitted.
A Brooklyn federal jury deliberated four days before returning the verdicts. Hernan Lopez, the former CEO of Fox International Channels, was convicted. Carlos Martinez, who headed the Latin America affiliate, was acquitted.
Prosecutors said the case revealed the corruption of international soccer. Defence lawyers said the former Fox execs were framed by an admitted criminal who was trying to minimize his own punishment.
An emotional Lopez hugged supporters in the courtroom after hearing the verdict, while his attorneys appeared stunned. The judge allowed him to be released on bail pending sentencing.
John Gleeson, an attorney for Lopez, asserted there were "legal and factual errors."
"We look forward to vindicating our client on appeal," he said.
Martinez's lawyer, Steve McCool, said "justice was served today for Carlos."
"The jurors heard that he was an innocent man, and that he should never have been here in the first place," McCool said outside court.
A South American sports media and marketing company also was convicted of graft allegations -- involving different TV rights. Full Play Group SA, incorporated in Uruguay, was accused of paying bribes for the rights to the Copa America, a quadrennial national team competition, as well as to World Cup qualifying matches.
New York-based Fox Corp., which split from a subsidiary of international channels during a restructuring in 2019, was not charged and has denied any involvement in the bribery scandal.
Lopez and Martinez are among dozens of people who have pleaded guilty or been convicted after a U.S.-led investigation into international soccer and its governing federation, FIFA. The probe burst into view in 2015, when U.S. prosecutors accused the leaders of soccer federations of tarnishing the sport for nearly a quarter century by taking US$150 million in bribes and payoffs.
FIFA went on to expand and rename its executive leadership group. Then-president Sepp Blatter was forced out and replaced by current president Gianni Infantino, who has insisted the organization has reformed. However, it has in recent years been criticized for tolerating alleged abuse of migrant workers during the construction of World Cup stadiums used in Qatar last year and of maintaining inferior payments and tournament arrangements for women players.
In the Lopez and Martinez case, prosecutors' star witness was the executives' former business associate Alejandro Burzaco. He has co-operated in soccer corruption investigations since his 2015 arrest in a related bribery case.
During 11 days on the witness stand, Burzaco said he and the two executives paid millions of dollars in bribes to undermine competing bids for the TV rights to the Southern Hemisphere's biggest annual tournament, the Copa Libertadores, and help land broadcasting rights to the sport's most lucrative competition, the World Cup.
Two jurors who agreed to speak after the trial said Burzaco was not a factor in their decisions.
"We didn't find him credible," said one of the jurors, Robert Rose, who works as an attorney.
Instead jurors relied on reams of documents presented during the case.
Rose said "it wasn't tough" to convict Lopez, and jurors wrestled over reaching a verdict for Martinez. In the end, Rose said, "there was enough doubt."
Defence lawyers said Burzaco lied about the former Fox executives to minimize his own conduct and curry favour with the government ahead of his own sentencing. He pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy and other charges.
Prosecutors allege the payoffs yielded confidential information from high-ranking soccer officials, including those at FIFA, that enabled Fox to beat out rival ESPN and secure U.S. broadcasting rights to the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
------
Associated Press writers Eric Tucker in Washington and Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed.
A Manitoba woman thought she found a miracle natural supplement, but said a hidden ingredient wreaked havoc on her health.
Hospital chaplain J.S. Park opens up about death, grief and hearing thousands of last words, and shares his advice for the living.
The World Health Organization is likely to issue a wider warning about contaminated Johnson and Johnson-made children's cough syrup found in Nigeria last week, it said in an email.
Canada called for 'all parties' to de-escalate rising tensions in the Mideast following an apparent Israeli drone attack against Iran overnight.
A woman who recently moved to Canada from India was searching for a job when she got caught in an online job scam and lost $15,000.
More money will land in the pockets of some Canadian families on Friday for the latest Canada Child Benefit installment.
The World Health Organization and around 500 experts have agreed for the first time on what it means for a disease to spread through the air, in a bid to avoid the confusion early in the COVID-19 pandemic that some scientists have said cost lives.
American millionaire Jonathan Lehrer, one of two men charged in the killings of a Canadian couple in Dominica, has been denied bail.
Group of Seven foreign ministers warned of new sanctions against Iran on Friday for its drone and missile attack on Israel, and urged both sides to avoid an escalation of the conflict.
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a grade four student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.