According to a Washington Times report ....in an embarrassing setback, the Justice Department gave up Tuesday on its high-profile prosecution of nearly two dozen businessmen charged in the first undercover sting the government used to enforce a 35-year-old law against foreign bribery.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon granted the department’s motion to dismiss all charges against 16 defendants still facing trial after the case fell apart in its first two courtroom tests in Washington. Ten defendants went through two lengthy trials, but jurors did not convict a single one.
The defendants were military suppliers arrested at a 2010 trade show in Las Vegas where they anticipated picking up checks for sales to outfit Gabon’s presidential guard. But no officials from the central African nation were really involved in the sting concocted by the FBI.
Judge Leon called the dismissal “the end of a long and sad chapter in the annals of white-collar criminal enforcement….”
Find out more at http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/21/prosecution-of-federal-bribery-case-collapses/
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