TOKYO (AP) — The six-year-old criminal case of Greg Kelly, an American ensnared in the scandal of Nissan’s former boss Carlos Ghosn, turned a page in a Japanese court Thursday, with his lawyer demanding “justice” with a verdict of total innocence.
Kelly, a former Nissan executive vice president, was arrested in 2018, on charges related to under-reporting the compensation of Ghosn, who led Nissan Motor Corp. for two decades. In 2022, Kelly was cleared of almost all counts and given a suspended sentence, which meant he didn’t serve time. He was found guilty for just one of the eight years for which the compensation allegedly was under-reported.
“The news traveled around the world, and Kelly’s reputation was tarnished literally on a global level,” defense lawyer Yoichi Kitamura told the Tokyo High Court.
In his final arguments, Kitamura denounced the lower court verdict as “unreasonable,” saying it didn’t make sense for Kelly to be part of a conspiracy for just the last year.
“I close my arguments by demanding the court carefully consider the evidence presented, come to judgment based on law and evidence to hand down the verdict of totally not guilty, restoring Kelly’s reputation and realizing justice,” Kitamura said, using the English word “justice.”
Presiding Judge Kazunori Karei promised a verdict on Feb. 4.
Kelly asserted his innocence from the start, as has Ghosn. Kelly returned to his home in Tennessee during the appeal and was not present in the courtroom.
Ghosn was also arrested and charged but fled to Lebanon while out on bail in 2019. He says he is innocent. Ghosn is unlikely to be ever tried as Japan has no extradition agreement with Lebanon.
Top Japanese executives tend to get far smaller salaries than their Western counterparts. When Japan began requiring top executives to disclose their compensation in 2010, Ghosn’s annual pay was cut by about half, or 1 billion yen ($10 million).
Testimony and documents presented during the trial showed Kelly tried to compensate Ghosn through possible post-retirement consultancy fees and paying him not to leave for a rival company, known as a “non-compete” agreement.
Kelly, a lawyer, says he was merely trying to retain Ghosn for Nissan’s best interests, using legal means, and the issues could have been sorted out in a board room, not a courtroom.
Prosecutors say they’re confident about their case, which alleges that Ghosn’s compensation was under-reported by 9 billion yen ($63 million) in filings over eight years through 2018.
Yuri Kageyama is on X: https://x.com/yurikageyama
FILE - Former Nissan Motor Co. executive Greg Kelly speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Tokyo, on Aug. 18, 2021. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)
Muhammad Ali. Evander Holyfield. Lennox Lewis.
Three boxers from an elite club of heavyweight greats to have been three-time world champions.
Anthony Joshua can put his name on that exclusive list by disposing of a British rival who sees himself as the future of the sport’s marquee category.
He can do it on quite the stage, too.
Joshua, a darling of British boxing ever since winning Olympic gold at the London Games in 2012, is looking to complete his late-career rebuild by beating Daniel Dubois to reclaim the IBF belt in front of around 96,000 fans at Wembley Stadium in London on Saturday.
It is one of the biggest crowds for any British sporting event — and that’s something Joshua is used to after selling out the UK’s biggest stadia for years. Indeed, it was at Wembley where he produced his greatest performance in defeating Wladimir Klitschko in epic fashion in 2017 to become a two-belt world champ.
As for the 27-year-old Dubois, a somewhat accidental world champion after taking the IBF crown vacated by Oleksandr Usyk, this is fairly new territory. It’s his first title defense and second world championship fight — Joshua has had 12 of them, of which 10 have been for unified titles — as he looks to establish his name atop the heavyweight scene.
A win for Dubois (21-2, with 20 KOs) and it will be seen as a definitive changing of the guard. The pretender will then be the big man in town, with huge riches in the offing in potential future fights against Usyk or Tyson Fury, who meet in a rematch on Dec. 21 in Saudi Arabia for Usyk’s WBA, WBC and IBO heavyweight belts.
For Joshua (28-3, with 25 KOs), it would mean climbing the mountain once again — or even hanging up his gloves.
“I’ve been to the well,” Joshua said. “Dan’s fighting someone who is willing to die in there.”
The 34-year-old from Watford, just outside London, faced a career reset after losing back-to-back fights against Usyk, soon after his first pro defeat — a shocker to Andy Ruiz Jr. in 2019.
Joshua got rid of his long-time trainer, set up camps in the U.S. instead of England, and tried to change his strategy. He had lost twice to Usyk, a smaller man, and it made him realize boxing is as much about skill and ring craft as power and brutality.
The rebuild has seen him win four straight fights — against Jermaine Franklin, Robert Helenius, Otto Wallin and then former UFC champion Francis Ngannou — and each performance has been better than the last.
His devastating punching power is still there, too. Just ask Ngannou, who was knocked out cold in the second round with an unblocked right hand.
Questions are still being asked of Joshua, however. Does he belong back in the first tier of the heavyweights? Will that long-awaited fight with Fury — trailed for almost a decade now — ever happen?
“Everything I’ve done in the past, we have to draw a line (through) because I can’t take that with me on Saturday night,” Joshua said. “In that moment, that’s all that matters.”
Dubois, nicknamed “Dynamite,” told The Associated Press this week he is looking to legitimize his status as the newest world heavyweight champion with what would be the biggest win of his career. He only gained the IBF belt in late-June after Usyk relinquished it, to no longer be undisputed champ.
“I need to show them on the night what I’m all about and then make the world respect me,” Dubois told the AP, “and make them put some respect to my name.”
Joshua is a bigger puncher and Dubois’ reputation might still be wounded after he took a knee and was counted out against another Brit, Joe Joyce, in 2020 for his first loss.
Dubois’ loss to Usyk in Wroclaw, Poland, is his only experience of big-time boxing and he said it made him grow “from a boy to a man.”
Joshua made that leap a long time ago and quickly became a national treasure, unbeaten for his first six years as a pro — three of them as a world champion — and establish an aura of invincibility.
After a chastening few years, he can reach those heights again on Saturday when the challenger, unusually, will start as the favorite.
AP Sports Writer Ken Maguire contributed to this story.
AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports
British boxer Daniel Dubois arrives at the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square, London, Tuesday Sept.17, 2024. (Bradley Collyer/PA via AP)
British boxer Daniel Dubois arrives at the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square, London, Tuesday Sept.17, 2024. (Bradley Collyer/PA via AP)
FILE - Britain's Daniel Dubois, left, and Ukraine's Oleksandr Usyk during their world heavyweight title fight at Tarczynski Arena in Wroclaw, Poland, Saturday, Aug. 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, file)
British boxer Anthony Joshua arrives at the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square, London, Tuesday Sept.17, 2024. (Bradley Collyer/PA via AP)
FILE - British former world champion Anthony Joshua, right, and MMA fighter Francis Ngannou fight during the heavyweight boxing showdown at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Saturday, March 9, 2024. (AP Photo, file)
British boxer Anthony Joshua arrives at the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square, London, Tuesday Sept.17, 2024. (Bradley Collyer/PA via AP)
