Red Card

by Ken Bensinger

  He subpoenaed every FIFA-related name he could think of: Sepp Blatter, Jack Warner, Mohamed bin Hammam, Jérôme Valcke, on and on. Some would come up dry, but many would turn up something, and when something promising came in, Berryman would upload the document to a folder in a secure server entitled “All Transactions,” which was accessible to the other agents and prosecutors on the case. As the files piled up, dozens becoming hundreds, Norris taught Berryman a little organizational trick: put the date of the questionable wire first in the title, being careful to list the year first, then the month, then the day. The result would look something like this:

  2008-12-19 Wire from CFU Republic Bank Trinidad to Sportvertising

  FirstCaribbean International Bank for $298,500

  That way, as the contents of the shared server grew, each new addition slotted into the larger whole in chronological order, and over time they had created a painstakingly constructed shareable timeline of apparent financial misdeeds.

  Then in early October, the final bureaucratic approvals from Washington had gone through clearing the way for Berryman to tell the rest of the team about Blazer’s tax troubles. It gave the whole investigation an immediate and razor-sharp focus.

  Every week, Norris would initiate a conference call with Randall in Manhattan and Berryman in Southern California to discuss what they were digging up, where it might lead, and what the next steps might be. Soccer may not have been a big deal in the U.S., but all three were aware of how closely it was scrutinized in the rest of the world; with so many potential targets living overseas, the slightest peep about what they were doing could severely damage the case. They had to be absolutely confident about their plan for Blazer.

  Norris wasn’t a diehard fan like Berryman, and in fact didn’t even own a television, to the amusement of his peers. But he did follow Tottenham Hotspur, a team that seemed perennially doomed to fall just below the top ranks of English soccer. Early on Saturday and Sunday mornings, when English Premier League games were shown in the U.S., he’d call Berryman to chat about the case, knowing the agent would be up before sunrise, glued to his television.

  In short order, the two had grown close, recognizing in each other a deep appreciation for the craft of building a case. They bounced ideas off one another and delighted in sharing new discoveries in the increasingly byzantine investigation. In his career, Berryman could think of only one or two other prosecutors who understood him as well as Norris. And Norris, eager to keep chatting with Berryman late into the night, would sometimes call him from inside the bathroom of his cramped Brooklyn apartment to avoid waking his sleeping wife and young children.

  In one of their calls, Berryman suggested a code name that they could use as shorthand to refer to the investigation. Something like “Abscam,” the FBI’s name for a public corruption sting in the late 1970s, or “Operation Silver Shovel,” which brought down a ton of politicians in Chicago in the 1990s. Berryman’s idea, which he said came to him in a flash, was “Operation Own Goal.” He liked the idea that crooked soccer officials had brought defeat on themselves due to their corrupt ways. Just as a soccer player might accidentally put the ball into his own net.

  Norris rejected the notion out of hand, leaving no opening for debate. The soccer case would have no name.

  * * *

  The 58-story Trump Tower, with its jagged steel and black glass exterior, shares its Midtown Manhattan block with the only slightly less imposing IBM Building. The two skyscrapers were completed within months of each other in the early 1980s, and are connected at ground level by an enclosed glass atrium built under an incentive system that allows developers to exceed zoning restrictions in exchange for incorporating public spaces into their projects.

  In contrast to the chaotic and profoundly glitzy lobby of the Trump Tower, swathed entirely in garish pink Breccia Pernice marble that a New York Times critic once said “gives off a glow of happy, if self-satisfied, affluence,” the adjoining atrium presents an oasis of peace and tranquility. With light gray granite floors and tall stands of bamboo, the 8,000-square-foot space is uncluttered and calm, devoid of the constant noise and commercial bravado that permeate its next-door neighbor. Businessmen come to find a few moments of respite from the bustle of the city, tourists rest and eat sandwiches, and schoolchildren frequently cluster beneath its tall glass roof to hear afternoon concerts. The plants and airy open space baffle the sounds of the city and, at the right angle, can even block out the tall buildings all around, creating a small island for quiet reflection.

  On the evening of November 30, 2011, Randall and Berryman walked into the atrium together, took a seat at a small round table near the entrance, and waited. The day was winding down, and only a few other people, scattered around the tables, remained. An hour earlier, Randall had called Chuck Blazer to say he’d like to talk again. Blazer had been at dinner, but said he’d be glad to meet later if he didn’t mind the trip uptown. The two agents, dressed in suits, arrived together and peered through the atrium’s glass walls, watching intently for their target.

  Finally, a van pulled over near the atrium’s entrance on Fifty-Sixth Street, and the driver unloaded a scooter, which Blazer then mounted and navigated through the doorway. Berryman tried not to stare. Somehow, the many photos of the soccer executive on the Internet had failed to do justice to the physical scale of the man. He seemed larger and hairier in real life, and he smiled amiably through his shaggy beard as he wheeled over to the agents.

  Randall greeted Blazer familiarly, though not warmly, shaking his hand.

  “As you may know, we’re investigating corruption in soccer,” Randall said. “This is Steve, and he’ll tell you what we’re doing.”

  Berryman reached out and gave Blazer his business card, which clearly identified him as an agent of the Internal Revenue Service. He paused to let Blazer look it over before he delivered a speech he had rehearsed several times in his mind.

  “My name is Steve Berryman and I want you to know that I’m doing this case for the right reasons,” he began. “I love football; it’s in my blood. And I want to do something to clean up all this corruption. I have been working on foreign corruption and money laundering cases and I am going to be successful at this.”

  He paused for a moment, looked at Blazer seriously, and said: “You haven’t filed taxes for years.”

  Berryman explained to Blazer that he had traced his accounts and had found evidence of more than a half-dozen sources of income, totaling millions of dollars that had never been reported to the IRS. In addition, Berryman said, he knew that Blazer had foreign bank accounts, which he had never disclosed. That was illegal under the Bank Secrecy Act, which required taxpayers to report the existence of such accounts to the federal government.

  All together, Berryman said, the evidence they’d found painted a clear picture of tax evasion, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison for each year that a return was not willfully filed. The statute of limitations was six years, which meant Blazer faced a maximum of thirty years behind bars for his tax crimes alone.

  Then, to punctuate his speech, Berryman handed Blazer a subpoena.

  It was an unusual move, pulled straight from Berryman’s bag of investigative tricks, compelling the recipient to turn over information about all foreign bank accounts he or she held. Normally under the Fifth Amendment, individuals are protected from providing potentially self-incriminating information. But such Title 31 subpoenas, Berryman knew, wiggle right through a useful loophole to put the person targeted by the subpoena in a rather awkward spot: either hand over documents that could be used to build a criminal case against them, or face being held in contempt of court.

  Berryman gave Blazer a moment to look over the subpoena, then concluded. “We want your help,” he said, and then both agents stared intently at Blazer. It was a critical moment, and they had discussed it endlessly with Norris and Hector in recent weeks.

  Busting Chuck Blazer for tax evasion was fine, but that wasn�
�t really the goal. They could have just arrested him on the spot and dragged him away in handcuffs, but a stand-alone tax case would get them nowhere. They wanted Blazer to cooperate, to trade his knowledge and access for a chance at a reduced sentence. This Trump Tower confrontation was their big play, and Blazer had a clear choice.

  If he went for it, then there were a million ways the case might go. He could open up the entire soccer world to them. But if Blazer refused, then they would have little choice but to prosecute him right away and potentially never get his help. They’d have to charge him and arraign him in open court and the whole world would know what they had been up to. The stakes were incredibly high.

  At first Blazer said nothing, sitting in stunned silence.

  Then he let out a long, slow sigh, and Berryman could feel a warm tingling sensation in his gut.

  “I want to help,” Blazer said.

  His girlfriend, former soap opera actress Mary Lynn Blanks, had been begging him to come clean for some time, he explained. She’d told him over and over he had to deal with it. “This has been weighing on me, my tax situation. I want to fix it and set it right,” Blazer said, a pained look on his face.

  Corruption in soccer, he added, “has gone on for far too long and it needs to stop.”

  Berryman and Randall glanced at each other, restraining smiles, and told Blazer he was making the right choice. He’d need a lawyer, they said, who should get in touch with the prosecution as soon as possible. Berryman took back his business card and wrote Evan Norris’s phone number on the back. Returning it, he told Blazer he couldn’t tell anyone other than his lawyers about this. Then he and Randall said good night and departed, leaving Blazer alone amid all the bamboo.

  It was a cool early winter night, but not cold. When the two agents had arrived at Trump Tower several hours earlier, Fifth Avenue had been crowded with cheerful families on their way to the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony held just a few blocks away at Rockefeller Center that same evening. Now the Midtown streets were deserted.

  It was pretty late, but Berryman couldn’t wait to share the good news. He called Norris on his cell phone, a grin on his lips; Blazer he said, had flipped. Big things were sure to come soon.

  * * *

  Three days later, Blazer wheeled into the offices of Friedman Kaplan Seiler & Adelman, a boutique litigation firm located on the twenty-eighth floor of an office tower just off Times Square.

  After his encounter with the agents, Blazer had first reached out to his personal attorney, Stuart Friedman, a subdued, bookish man who advised him on commercial matters and had some experience in commercial sports law. Friedman wanted to help, but he was not a criminal lawyer, so he had made the referral and accompanied Blazer to the meeting.

  To reduce the risk that somebody might spot Blazer—who, after all, cut a rather noticeable figure—walking into a law firm, the attorneys agreed to meet early that Saturday morning, when there was little traffic in Times Square and he could pop out of a car and through the building’s revolving doors without drawing attention.

  Friedman introduced him to his new white-collar defense attorneys, Mary Mulligan and Eric Corngold. Mulligan had been a federal prosecutor in New York’s Southern District, and taught classes on criminal law. Corngold had also been a federal prosecutor, but in the Eastern District, where the FIFA Case was being run, and was later a deputy attorney general for New York State.

  Gathered around a conference table, the lawyers carefully explained what it meant to cooperate with a federal investigation. The prosecution’s goal was simple: to expand the case, gathering enough evidence to charge additional people with crimes. Norris and Hector believed Blazer could help them do that.

  If he decided to go through with it, Blazer would have to tell the prosecutors everything he knew. He’d have to share documents, emails, text messages, financial records, photographs—anything they asked for. Blazer would also most likely be asked to do things to help the case. He’d have to make calls and secretly record the conversations, send and receive emails, and meet people while wearing a wire. Eventually, he would probably have to testify against friends and colleagues in open court, talking about their deeds while they glared at him.

  He would, in other words, become a snitch. But in the jargon of law enforcement, it all fell under the umbrella of providing “substantial assistance.” And the reward for substantial assistance, for doing exactly as asked, for spilling his guts, for leading a secret life, for betraying his friends, and for helping secure their convictions, was leniency.

  First Blazer would participate in a long series of meetings with the prosecutors, called proffers, and they’d hear his story. After he had given everything he could, and convinced the feds he’d been honest, Blazer would have to plead guilty to one or more crimes. There was no avoiding that. He’d almost certainly be forced to pay a large fine. In exchange, he’d be rewarded with a cooperation agreement, which promised Blazer that, when it was time for his sentencing, the prosecutors would write a letter asking the judge for a “downward departure from sentencing guidelines.” That translated to: Please go easy on this guy because he was helpful.

  With any luck, it might be possible for Blazer to avoid prison entirely. It wouldn’t be cheap, but he’d be able to live in his own home, and since his cooperation would be a secret, nobody in his social circle would have to know he had been busted—at least until the case become public. In fact, they absolutely should not ever learn about what he was up to, because talking about cooperating was forbidden. If Blazer blabbed, or lied, or did anything to interfere with the case, all deals were off. He could be arrested, locked up, or forced to plea to additional crimes, including obstruction of justice.

  Cooperation, in other words, would be like a really terrible, unpaid second job that Blazer couldn’t tell anyone about. He would spend untold hours with prosecutors and special agents, and he’d be at their beck and call. He’d need permission to travel. And since a crucial part of cooperation was being available as a witness at trial, his sentencing wouldn’t come until every other potential defendant had either been convicted or acquitted. The whole process could take years, during which time the feds more or less would own Blazer.

  The alternatives were simple, but far more perilous: plead not guilty and fight the charges in court, which could lead to a long prison term if Blazer was convicted, or agree to plead guilty but refuse to cooperate, abandoning any hope of calls for moderation from the prosecutors.

  Blazer stood firm. He wanted to cooperate. His lawyers would reach out to Norris and set up an initial meeting. But first they needed to understand how their new client had come to this place. So Blazer started to tell the story of his life in soccer. By the time he had finished, it was dark and cold outside and nine hours had passed.

  TWELVE

  * * *

  THE CROWN JEWEL

  CHUCK BLAZER LIKED TO TAKE credit for creating the Gold Cup, CONCACAF’s marquee tournament, which pitted the region’s national teams against one another. Dreaming it up and getting it off the ground were, in fact, his first major accomplishments as the confederation’s general secretary.

  But the part of the story he tended not to dwell on was how the event was initially a commercial disaster and was saved only thanks to the efforts of a little-known but ingenious Brazilian soccer marketer. That man was named José Hawilla, and he had a special talent for taking struggling, third-rate tournaments and turning them into huge moneymakers.

  The first Gold Cup was held in 1991, and initial commercial interest in the event was almost nonexistent. Chuck Blazer had envisioned the tournament as a profit center for both CONCACAF and himself thanks to his unusual contract, but he struggled to attract sponsors and was barely able to command any money at all trying to sell the TV rights to broadcasters, cable channels, or pay-per-view.

  Selling commercial rights to soccer matches, particularly in a country where the sport ranked fifth in popularity behind football, b
asketball, baseball, and hockey, was significantly harder than it looked. Still, Blazer had seen how lucrative events like the World Cup and the European Championship could be, and realized he could use some advice.

  He had first met Hawilla in 1987, when Blazer, then commissioner of the American Soccer League, was looking for investors to buy additional franchises. Retired Brazilian star player Carlos Alberto Torres introduced him to Hawilla, who flew up to New York from São Paulo and spent two days in Blazer’s home office in Scarsdale, assessing the league’s prospects.

  In the end, the Brazilian opted against buying a team. But in anticipation of the 1994 World Cup in the U.S., he moved to Boca Raton for two years starting in 1992 to get a feel for the American market, which he believed held tremendous commercial potential thanks to the country’s large and growing Hispanic population.

  Blazer bumped into Hawilla at the second Gold Cup, in 1993, which he’d decided to split between the U.S. and Mexico in what ultimately proved to be an unsuccessful attempt at ginning up more interest from potential sponsors. Spotting the Brazilian in a VIP box during a match, Blazer seized upon the opportunity to ask his advice.

  Three years earlier, Hawilla had cofounded the sports marketing firm Inter/Forever Sports in Miami, and he’d started scooping up inexpensive rights to club team matches in Central America and the Caribbean, as well as the occasional one-off friendly exhibition match featuring national teams flown into South Florida. Most of the revenue from such events came from ticket sales, and from pay-per-view contracts from restaurants and bars that catered to a Hispanic clientele.