The jurors in the trial of Lindsey Manufacturing, its CEO Dr. Keith Lindsey and CFO Steve K. Lee, and the wife of Lindsey’s Mexican sales representative Angela Aguilar, have started their deliberations.
Before sending the case to the jury, the judge acquitted Angela Aguilar on one of the two money laundering counts she faced. He let the other count against her, conspiracy to commit money laundering, go to the jury. She’s the only defendant on trial for money laundering.
Aguilar’s husband, Enrique Aguilar Noriega, is also charged with FCPA and money-laundering offenses. He hasn’t been apprehended and so is not on trial.
The Lindsey defendants are charged with one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and five substantive FCPA violations.
The government says Aguilar and her husband helped arrange millions in bribes from California-based Lindsey Manufacturing to Nestor Moreno, an official at the Mexican state-owned electric utility Comisión Federal de Electridad. The bribes were allegedly paid in exchange for contracts to Lindsey from CFE.
This afternoon, Lindsey’s counsel filed a motion to dismiss the indictment on grounds of repeated instances of misconduct by the DOJ prosecutors and FBI agents in charge of the investigation and prosecution. Among other things, the motion alleged false and misleading testimony before the grand jury and false statements in an affidavit in support of a seizure warrant (to seize some of the Aguilars’ property) by one of the FBI co-case agents. The filing also alleged false and misleading statements by the other FBI case agent in an affidavit in support of a search warrant for the premises of Lindsey Manufacturing Company.
“This motion arises from the unique circumstances of this case,” according to Jan L. Handzlik, lawyer for the Lindsey defendants. “We did not file it in haste. Rather, it was filed only after a thorough review of the record and careful consideration of the law. In the end, we felt compelled to proceed for one simple reason: for our system to function in a fair and even-handed way, both the defense and the prosecution have to play by the rules.”
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Judge A. Howard Matz is presiding over the Los Angeles case — U.S. v. Noriega et al, U.S. District Court, Central District of California (Western Division – Los Angeles), Case #: 2:10-cr-01031-AHM-4.
Jan L. Handzlik of Greenberg Traurig is defending Lindsey Manufacturing and Dr. Keith Lindsey. Steve K. Lee is represented by Janet Levine of Crowell & Moring. Angela Aguilar is represented by Stephen G. Larson of Girardi | Keese.
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