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Thread: Buffalo News: Jury convicts John Rigas, son Timothy

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    Buffalo News: Jury convicts John Rigas, son Timothy

    NEW YORK -
    John J. Rigas, the former Buffalo Sabres owner who only three years ago reigned as Western New York's most respected business leader, now faces the possibility of a long prison term after a federal jury Thursday convicted him of fraud and conspiracy.

    view the complete story here

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    OWL SEZ:
    John J. Rigas, the former Buffalo Sabres owner who only three years ago reigned as Western New York's most respected business leader, now faces the possibility of a long prison term after a federal jury Thursday convicted him of fraud and conspiracy.
    Just think-----The Mayor, County Exec. and Governer were going to give them the money to build a skyscraper, while small businessmen struggle to stay in business in Buffalo.

    GO FIGURE

    BF

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    Rigases lose appeal of convictions

    Rigases lose appeal of convictions
    Two face long terms in Adelphia scandal
    By Michael Beebe NEWS STAFF REPORTER
    Updated: 05/25/07 6:46 AM



    John J. Rigas and his son Timothy lost their best and perhaps only chance at avoiding lengthy prison terms as a three-judge federal appeals panel Thursday upheld their convictions for looting Adelphia Communications Corp. of more than $2.3 billion.

    John Rigas, the diminutive 82- year-old founder of the cable company, and Timothy, 50, Adelphia’s chief financial officer, were properly convicted of securities fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and bank fraud, the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled.

    “Defendants are wrong,” the judges wrote of the Rigases’ primary defense: that government prosecutors were required to present expert testimony about accounting standards.

    That argument had kept both Rigases out of jail since their conviction in July 2004, when the lowercourt judge ruled they had a legitimate chance in appealing their case.

    The appeals court did reverse one minor count, meaning that Rigas and his son will return to U.S. District Judge Leonard B. Sand for resentencing.

    The minor reversal is not expected to substantially change the 15- year term Sand earlier gave to John Rigas or the 20 years in prison he gave to Timothy Rigas. Sand told John Rigas at sentencing he was already giving him a break because of his advanced age and fragile health.

    The judge also had told him then that once he serves at least two years in prison and ever is told he has less than three months to live, he will be released from custody.

    Attorneys for both Rigases did not return telephone calls from The Buffalo News inquiring about a possible appeal. Federal prosecutors declined to comment, and Sand’s staff did not have an immediate date for resentencing.

    Thursday’s decision may be the final chapter in the dramatic rise and fall of John Rigas, who began his career by buying a movie house in Coudersport, Pa., in the early 1950s and then putting together the country’s fifth-largest cable television company.

    Adelphia also owned the Buffalo Sabres and, until its fall in 2002, was considered the potential savior of Buffalo’s waterfront.

    The end came when Timothy Rigas told investors in March 2002 that Adelphia had approximately $2.2 billion in liabilities that it never reported.

    Adelphia’s stock price plunged 25 percent that day to $20.39 a share, and by May, when it was delisted from the stock exchange, shares had fallen to $1.16, a loss of billions for its investors. An office tower planned in Buffalo never was built.

    The Rigas family was forced to forfeit 95 percent of its assets, or more than $1.5 billion.

    The family, prosecutors charged, treated Adelphia as its personal piggy bank, using company funds to essentially buy hundreds of millions of dollars in Adelphia stock and a number of headline-grabbing personal items.

    That included 200 pairs of slippers for Timothy Rigas; $3 million to finance a film by John Rigas’ daughter, Ellen; millions more for a never-finished designer golf course in Coudersport; and $6,000 to deliver two Christmas trees to Ellen Rigas in New York City aboard the company plane.

    “The Rigases sort of hit for the cycle of corporate crime,” former U.S. Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey told The News in April 2005.

    “You had self-dealing, you had accounting fraud, you had bank fraud, you had looting,” said Comey, who was the U.S. attorney in Manhattan when the case began. “You had everything you see in corporate crime.”

    The jury had deadlocked on another Rigas son, Michael, who later pleaded guilty plea to a lesser charge and was sentenced to 10 months of home confinement.

    John and Timothy Rigas have been home in Coudersport awaiting Thursday’s decision.

    After the scandal forced Adelphia into bankruptcy, the company moved from Coudersport to Greenwood Village, Colo., and Time Warner Cable and Comcast Corp. later bought the company’s assets.

    mbeebe@buffnews.com
    I'm really beginning to feel the attorneys & courts are trying to do anything possible to keep Rigas out of prison. If it was almost anyone else would it really take almost 3 year's to hear the appeal?

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    Personally, I don't know why they're being persecuted. They do what our country's most financially "successful" businessmen do, lie, cheat, and steal.

    Regards.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Genoobie
    Personally, I don't know why they're being persecuted. They do what our country's most financially "successful" businessmen do, lie, cheat, and steal.

    Regards.

    Such a bitter and little person you are. You really need to get over not being wealthy/successful. Yes there are bad people in executive positions. But there are just as many bad people in every "walk" of life. You need to stop villainizing those who have done more and have more then you. It is not going to change your place in life.

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    Member ChaneysGotaGun's Avatar
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    Lewis Black on Adelphia

    Comic Lewis Black on the Rigas family and the Adelphia scandal:

    • "I'm surprised that the employees of that company didn't rise up as one and slay them."

    • "Two billion dollars? What the %$#& were they going to do, start their own space program!"
    Last edited by ChaneysGotaGun; May 26th, 2007 at 01:19 PM.

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