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Juror's Views of the Case Against Bourke, see Courthouse News.
"Although Bourke had read the Fortune article about Kozeny's Czech adventure at the time, he decided to invest anyway in Kozeny's scheme to privatize Azerbaijan's state-run oil industry SOCAR by buying vouchers from the country's citizens - and paying off senior officials, all the way up to then-Azeri President Haydar Aliyev. Throughout the trial, Bourke had maintained that he was just one of the many investors in Kozeny's failed scheme that lost his money when it derailed two years later and said he was ignorant of the bribes. However, jurors found there were too many "red flags" for Bourke not to have known."
Editor's Note: Frederic Bourke was convicted on July 10, 2009. New York Times reports:
"Frederic Bourke, a founder of the handbag maker Dooney & Bourke, was convicted Friday of conspiring to pay bribes to government leaders in Azerbaijan in a 1998 oil deal. The federal jury in Manhattan returned its verdict after a monthlong trial. Jurors found that Mr. Bourke conspired with a Czech expatriate, Viktor Kozeny, to pay bribes to the former president of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev, and other leaders. The verdict is a victory for federal prosecutors as they step up enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bars payments to foreign officials. Few criminal cases under the law ever go to trial."
Previously posted:
The trial is underway in US District Court, New York. Co-defendant Czech national Viktor Kozeny is currently living in the Bahamas. The US request for Kozeny's extradition was rejected.The allegations are that Frederic Bourke conspired with Kozeny and others to bribe government leaders in Azerbaijan in a bid to buy the state oil company. Bourke invested $8 million and brought his friend George Mitchell into the deal. Bourke's former Swiss attorney plead guilty and has testified for the prosecution.
