U.S. pursuing FIFA just like Robert F. Kennedy did organized crime
NEW YORK – The United States government will use the same legal basis to attack soccer governing body FIFA's culture of corruption that Robert F. Kennedy once used to pursue American organized crime syndicates, according to a former prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney's Office.
David Weinstein, who used to head the public integrity section of the U.S. Attorney's Miami office, said the reason authorities were able to level a 47-count indictment against 14 soccer officials connected with FIFA on Wednesday is the RICO statute, a federal law that confers wide powers to tackle organized crime on the grounds of financial malfeasance.
It reminded Weinstein of how Kennedy – who served as U.S. Attorney General under his brother, President John F. Kennedy – built cases in the early 1960s.
"Robert Kennedy prosecuted organized crime using the exact same statute," Weinstein, a private attorney not affiliated with the case, told USA TODAY. "(FIFA) isn't committing murder and mayhem and kidnapping people, but they're taking bribes and using our financial system to facilitate the operation of their criminal activity."
Crucial to the multiple cases launched by Attorney General Loretta Lynch and a task force involving several branches of the legal system including the FBI and IRS, was that bribes and illicit payments allegedly filtered through American bank accounts.
That gave Lynch and her team the jurisdiction to seek penalties on federal racketeering, wire fraud and corruption charges.
The indictment included claims of bribery involving millions of dollars and some of FIFA's key figures. Lynch said officials "used their positions of trust to solicit bribes" on a mass scale, dating back more than 20 years.
And while FIFA had earlier tried to spin the arrests of seven defendants in Switzerland – at the request of U.S. authorities – as a welcome development in fighting corruption, in truth the organization has never faced a bigger scandal.
"These individuals and organizations engaged in bribery to decide who would televise games, where the games would be held and who would run the organization overseeing organized soccer worldwide," Lynch said.
It is unclear whether a separate investigation by Swiss authorities into the hosting of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups was linked to the investigation laid out by Lynch and the Department of Justice.
FIFA President Sepp Blatter has not been implicated, Lynch said. However, among those charged is Blatter's close ally, Jeffrey Webb, a FIFA vice president and president of the CONCACAF federation that encompasses North and Central America and the Caribbean and including the U.S., was among those charged.
Among the charges leveled against Webb and others are racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering. The most serious charge, racketeering, carries a possible prison sentence of 20 years.
Federal agents streamed out of FIFA's regional headquarters in Miami Beach, known as CONACAF, on Wednesday afternoon. After arriving early in the morning, they carried three dozen boxes of documents and at least two computers into a waiting minivan.
The daylong raid drew a crowd to the nondescript office building located a few blocks from the city's iconic South Beach. Dozens of reporters waited outside and tourists – some on Segways – stopped to take pictures and ask what was happening.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami said it would not comment on the raid. An FBI spokesman in Miami referred reporters to the agency's New York office.
The investigation is a joint venture involving several arms of the U.S. legal system, including the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Internal Revenue Service.
"The game was hijacked," FBI Director James Comey said. "The field was tilted in favor of those seeking to profit. That hijacking is being met with a very aggressive response."
Blatter did not comment on the developments Wednesday, with a FIFA spokesman saying he was not involved. Blatter is up for re-election as FIFA president on Friday, when he will seek a fifth term in charge. The 79-year-old would hold the post for four more years if he wins, with his only opposition being Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan. Three other candidates dropped out.
"I want to be very clear: This is the beginning of our effort, not the end," said Kelly Currie, acting U.S. attorney for the eastern district of New York. "We are looking into individuals and entities in a variety of countries."
Contributing: Alan Gomez in Miami.
VIDEO: FIFA officials arrested