| For Immediate Release Jul 24, 2002 |
Contact: Press Office 202-646-5188 |
Adelphia Communications Owner and Sons Indicted For Allegedly Looting Cable TV Provider No Arrests in Enron, Global Crossing, Halliburton, or WorldCom Scandals (Washington, DC) Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, observed Bush Justice Department pronouncements that Adelphia Communications founder and former chairman and CEO John Rigas, 77, were arrested on federal conspiracy charges brought by the Justice Department, along with Timothy Rigas, a former company chief financial officer, and Michael Rigas, another former company executive for allegedly looting the cable TV provider and using it as their "personal piggy bank." In addition to the criminal charges brought by the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission brought a civil lawsuit Wednesday in federal court, calling the case "one of the most extensive financial frauds ever to take place at a public company." Not coincidentally, no criminal charges or arrests have been brought by the Bush-Cheney Justice Department in connection with high officials of Enron, Halliburton, Global Crossing or WorldCom. President Bush and senior members of his administration have close ties to Enron and its CEO, Kenneth Lay, who the president affectionately calls, “Kenny Boy.” Vice President Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton in the late 1990s. Global Crossing and WorldCom were both large contributors to the two major political parties. “This is an attempt to create the illusion of tough enforcement by the Bush-Cheney Justice Department concerning the nation’s securities laws, but it does not address the Bush-Cheney administration’s failures to aggressively pursue the Enron, Global Crossing, Halliburton and WorldCom scandals. It is conveniently timed (as the stock market crashes) to seem like tough action, but today’s arrests probably have more to do with sinking presidential opinion polls than with this administration’s commitment to exposing corporate corruption. We have yet to see an American corporate executive from any of those more significant, but politically connected corporate scandals led away in handcuffs,” stated Judicial Watch Chairman and General Counsel Larry Klayman. | |