The Indictment of Sepp Blatter
In a few weeks an FBI agent will make his way to the federal courthouse in Manhattan. There, he will take an elevator to an upper floor where he will meet in a closed room with twenty or so people chosen at random, mainly voters and drivers from the New York area. This collection of people is the grand jury. They work part-time, their identities are secret and they are paid around $10 per day. In the room there will be a prosecutor, known as an Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA). There will be no judge present and certainly no defense attorneys. These proceedings will be secret. But this is what will happen inside that room:
If the FBI agent has not testified before, he will be put under oath; otherwise, he will be reminded that he is still under oath. He will state his qualifications, that of being a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He will state that he has been investigating a conspiracy involving FIFA for several years. Perhaps then the AUSA will hand him a sheet of paper and ask him if he knows what the document is. The agent will then testify that it is a copy of an e-mail that implicates Sepp Blatter. The AUSA will then ask if there is any other evidence against Blatter. The agent will say that a cooperating individual has provided further information about Blatter’s criminal conduct. The individual will not be identified: hearsay evidence is not permitted at trial but this is no trial. The agent will then be excused and the AUSA, as legal advisor to this grand jury, will present a document which he and the agent have collaborated on “for the grand jury’s consideration.” He will then leave the room. A short while later, he will be summoned back by a federal marshall, and the grand jury foreman will present him with the signed, superseding indictment against Sepp Blatter. This document will be copied and filed with the clerk’s office and a federal magistrate will issue an arrest warrant.
The Race to Testify
It is unlikely, though possible, that prior to the arrest of seven FIFA officers in Switzerland the AUSA and the FBI did not feel they had enough evidence against Sepp Blatter. The arrest of these men caught them by surprise. In the past few days they have contacted their attorneys, none of whom have any experience in defending federal criminal cases in New York. But by now these attorneys have reached out to those who do have this experience. The uniform advice that was given by all of them was: if you are guilty get to the prosecutor now. Even if you are not guilty, get to the prosecutor now.
The federal conviction rate nationally is over 95%. A criminal defendant will assume that he falls within that lucky 5%, but this is almost never the case. Federal sentences are formulaic and an individual’s personal circumstances are essentially ignored. Instead, the punishment is based on the crime. In this case, millions of dollars are at stake. The sentences will be high, unless…
Unless the defendants plead guilty and testify against others. The head of a criminal organization is always the target. Fraudster Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison. His accountant(!), a key figure who played an essential role in Madoff’s scheme, received probation. The FIFA defendants know that any information against Sepp Blatter could be a “Get out of Jail Free” card. The authorities in New York may simply be waiting for someone to play that card. Have no doubt, one of the defendants will make the call. Based on that call, the AUSA will send the FBI agent to the grand jury room to indict Sepp Blatter.
