A U.S. justice of the peace wrongly rejected the release of a father and son persecuted across Japan for helping to evacuate former Nissan Motor Co. President Carlos Ghosn from the country, his lawyers said Tuesday.
Michael and Peter Taylor’s lawyers suggested federal district judge Indira Talwani release the men on bail without delay. His lawyers insisted that the Taylors did not aim to flee the United States while fighting for their extradition to Japan, and noted that the men had returned to Massachusetts from Lebanon before this year, even though they knew Japan was looking to be arrested.
“If he manages to escape, he faces exile, the fugitive,” attorney James Ulwick said of Peter Taylor. “Where would I go?
The Taylors have been locked up in a Massachusetts criminal since his arrest in May. Trial judge Donald Cabell denied them bail this month as they posed a flight risk.
Japan is asking the United States to turn over Michael Taylor, a veteran of the U.S. Army Special Forces. 59, and his 27-year-old son, Peter Taylor, on trial for smuggling Ghosn out of a box last year. while on bail and awaiting trial on allegations of monetary misconduct.
Bank documents show that Ghosn awarded more than $860,000 to a Peter Taylor-related company in October 2019, prosecutors said in court documents. Ghosn’s son also made invoices in cryptocurrencies totaling about $500,000 to Peter Taylor in the first five months of this year, according to prosecutors.
Deputy U.S. Attorney Stephen Hassink said the Taylors were asking the court to believe they wouldn’t disappear while Japan tried to extradite them, while their movements in the Ghosn case showed a generalized rule of law.
They are accused of “entering Japan with the sole purpose of helping a billionaire accused of monetary crimes, Carlos Ghosn, evade prosecution,” Hassink said.
“Their efforts took months of planning, millions of dollars and attracted the world’s attention. Despite these facts, the Taylors are asking this court to accept them as true,” he said.
Talwani seemed skeptical of the Taylors’ argument for liberation. He noted that the component of his defense that opposes extradition is that Ghosn’s movements of bail are not a crime in Japan, and helping a user escape while on bail is also not a crime.
“It’s hard to equate this with the concept that bail here would be anything that’s respected,” the opinion said.
Talwani made a resolution at Tuesday’s hearing, but said he would have a “soon.”