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 Aaron Davidson, who was the head of Traffic Group's U.S. unit in
Miami, has since his arrest in May been "actively engaged in plea
negotiations," prosecutors said in a letter filed in federal court
in Brooklyn, New York.
The letter was filed ahead of a court hearing for Davidson scheduled
for Friday. Davidson's lawyer declined to comment.
Court proceedings in the sprawling corruption case are ramping up,
as Swiss authorities have extradited to the United States a
defendant who was among seven current and former FIFA officials
arrested in Zurich.
FIFA, soccer's world governing body, has hired a New York-based
crisis communications and consulting firm, Teneo, to help handle the
multinational probes and try to restore its tarnished image.
Swiss authorities did not name the extradited official, but the news
came six days after a source told Reuters that Jeffrey Webb, one of
the seven executives arrested on May 27, had agreed not to fight his
extradition.
In May, Davidson pleaded not guilty to charges that he secured
sports marketing contracts worth more than $35 million for Traffic,
in part by arranging bribes for Webb. He posted a $5 million bond
and is under house arrest.
The letter filed in court on Thursday did not give details of the
plea negotiations. It said prosecutors had begun disclosing some
material to Davidson's lawyers that could be used as evidence in the
case.
At a March 2014 meeting in New York that the indictment said had
been called to discuss bribe schemes, Davidson allegedly said to a
co-conspirator, "Is it illegal? It is illegal."
The indictment charged soccer officials and marketing executives
with exploiting the sport for their own gain through bribes of $150
million over 24 years.
The owner of Traffic, Brazilian José Hawilla, has already pleaded
guilty to wire fraud conspiracy, obstruction of justice and other
charges.
ATTEMPT TO CONTAIN FALLOUT
Davidson and the others have been swept up in a U.S.-led probe into
allegations of bribery, fraud and money laundering. The probe
includes possible corruption in the awarding of the 2018 and 2022
World Cup tournaments to Russia and Qatar, respectively.
FIFA's hiring of Teneo, a crisis communications and advisory firm,
"to work across operational and reputational priorities" as a FIFA
spokeswoman explained it, represents the organization's latest
attempt to contain the fallout from the scandal.
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Teneo declined to comment, but its executives include a number of
people who have worked on World Cup bids, among them its president,
Doug Band, who was a director of a U.S. campaign to host the
tournament in 2022. The U.S. bid lost out to Qatar in a vote of FIFA
executive committee members that is now one subject of the U.S. and
Swiss investigations.
Before co-founding Teneo, Band served for years as a close aide to
former U.S. President Bill Clinton in the White House as well as in
his post-presidential career
In another sign of how FIFA is grappling with pressure to improve
transparency, its ethics committee, responsible for investigating
the corruption allegations, on Thursday called for a change in rules
to let it release more information about ongoing investigations.
Webb, 50, and six others were jailed after a dawn raid on a luxury
hotel in Zurich just two days before a FIFA congress in May where
President Sepp Blatter, 79, was re-elected for a fifth term.
A citizen of the Cayman Islands, Webb is charged with racketeering
conspiracy, wire fraud and money laundering. Neither his lawyer nor
a U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman responded to requests for
comment.
The U.S. indictment describes Webb as using his influential
positions to solicit bribes from sports marketing companies in
exchange for the commercial rights to soccer matches.
(Writing by Christian Plumb and David Ingram; Reporting by Nate
Raymond, David Ingram and Jonathan Allen in New York, Katharina Bart
in Zurich and Simon Evans in Miami; Editing by G Crosse and Noeleen
Walder)
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