US district court has delayed until March the sentence against a Los Angeles film-making couple convicted of bribing ex-Thai tourism chief to run a Bangkok film festival.
The hearing is postponed until March 4. According to TheWrap.com, the judge requested some sort of official statement from the Thai government declaring Thailand had been harmed by Gerald and Patricia Green's activities.
The judge seemed to signal a belief that the Greens' crimes (bribing a foreign official, conspiracy, money laundering and tax fraud) weren't to be considered all that serious because, allegedly, Thailand may have profited from the Greens' work on its film festival - and because the Greens had no apparent competitors for the film festival contracts, anyway.
Wu wants from defense attorney Jerry Mooney an abbreviated medical history of Gerald, 78, who is emphysemic (he appeared in court with a small oxygen tank slung over his shoulder) and suffers from high cholesterol and an enlarged prostate.
Los Angeles court on Tuesday charged Juthamas Siriwan, former governor of Tourism Authority of Thailand and her daughter Jittisopa for receiving US$1.8 million of bribes from film producers Gerald and Patricia Green between 2002 and 2007 in exchange for running the Bangkok International Film Festival and other tourism-related deals.
The Greens were arrested and convicted of involvement in an overseas corruption scam and were scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday.
The US federal prosecutors said Juthamas and her daughter were charged with conspiracy and eight other counts. Both can face up to 20 years jail term if convicted.
The US prosecutors also said the bribes Juthamas accepted were given both in form of cash and disguised as sales commissions of between 10 and 20 per cent.
Prosecutors added that the suspects opened bank accounts in Singapore and the United Kingdom to receive the corrupt payments.
