Tuesday, December 29, 2009

 

Gary Tanaka- A Miscarriage of Justice?

I don't usually focus on individual cases in my blog but a friend of mine, Paul Haigh,has recently written a piece on Gary Tanaka, someone he met through his journalist activities. He feels Tanaka has been the victim of a shameful miscarriage of justice and is trying to publicie the case. Tanaka was co-founder, with Alberto Vilar of Amerindo Investments in 1985 has been the victim of a quite extraordinary miscarriage of justice.

In 2005, Tanaka was arrested with Vilar for allegely diverting millions of dollars of investor's money for personal use. Having read Haigh's piece it certainly seems that Tanaka has been unjustly bracketed with Vilar- who was found guilty on all 12 charges- when he had little or no day to day contact with him- living in a Britain and Vilar in the USA- and was by no means closely acquainted with his partner's business activities.

Tanaka was found guilty on three charges out of the 12 but this was enough to remove his credibility as a businessman; Haigh argues this was essentially brought about through 'guilt by association'. The main complainant against him, Lily Cates Naify, actually did not lose any of the $6m she invested in his company, as Haigh's article makes clear. Since then Tanaka has been surviving cancer- successfully as it happens- and living, for four years under virtual house arrent as the glacially moving US legal system continues to wait to announce any sentence.

Having read- admittedly only a little- about the case there seems, prime facie, to have been a mistake made born of the witchhunt atmosphere generated by the fiancial scandals of the noughties, beginning with Enron and continuing most recently with the banking crisis. Nobody could deny that public anger against the corporate villains of Enron or indeed our very own Sir Fred Goodwin, was not justified, but along with the guilty such public groundswells can also include the perfectly innocent.

Comments:
Phew you say you do not know much about the case, yet come up with innocence. I have to say i know nothing about this man, if he is guilty then with luck he will get what he deserves and if he is Innocent then he should go free. But why would you go into business not knowing what was going on.
 
Anon
I was careful to say I did not know the whole facts- how could I?- and said i thought there was a 'prima facie' case he was innocent. Can't see what's so 'phew' making about that. And I'm touched by tyour faith in the US justice system; like ours it makes mistakes.
 
Your statement denying the losses sustained by Lily Cates Naify is clearly incorrect if you followed the case carefully, however, as between Vilar and Tanaka the former is clearly the more directly culpable for peculating her funds.
 
In a trial that lasted several weeks, a jury after being presented the prosecution's case and it being rebutted by Tanaka's (and Vilar's) attorneys found Tanak guilty of some counts and not others. Yet you present the case that he is innocent based on your assumption that Tanaka knew nothing of Vilar's business. They have been partners for nearly 30 years. Surely that would be a stretch.
 
Gary Tenaka is a kind, humble and soft- spoken man with whom I have the pleasure of knowing. But mostly, Mr. Tenaka is honest, almost to a fault, and I've no doubt what so ever that he was railroaded by the United States Department of Justice. Take a cold hard look at the facts of the case for yourself and you too will see that this man is a victim of circumstace, simple and plain.
 
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