Adelphia founder gets 15-year term; son gets 20

Just after he was sentenced, the elder Rigas, hunched forward in his seat, held his right hand over his mouth and dabbed at his eyes and nose with a white tissue.

The judge, while expressing concern for Rigas’ age and poor health, made repeated reference to the investors who had placed their trust in the Rigas family, many losing their retirement security.

At one point, Rigas’ lawyer Peter Fleming tried to convince Sand that his client believed deeply in philanthropy, loved the town of Coudersport and was “obviously scared to death of prison.”

The judge interjected: “Do you see what he did? What he did to Coudersport, what he did with assets and by means which were not appropriately his?”

“To be a great philanthropist with other people’s money really is not very persuasive,” Sand said.

Both men were ordered to report to prison Sept. 19, but lawyers told the judge they planned to file motions for their clients to stay out of prison pending appeal.

One defense lawyer said he hoped the U.S. Bureau of Prisons would assign John Rigas to the Federal Medical Center in Rochester, Minn.

The sentences come as some of the highest-profile white-collar fraud cases in the post-Enron era lurch toward their conclusions in courts around the country.

Just Friday, former Tyco International Ltd. CEO L. Dennis Kozlowski and former CFO Mark Swartz were convicted of looting that company of $600 million. They are to be sentenced in August.

Next month, former WorldCom Inc. chief Bernard Ebbers faces sentencing for orchestrating the $11 billion accounting scandal at that company. Already 63, Ebbers could spend the rest of his life in prison.

In October 2004, former Rite Aid Corp. attorney Franklin C. Brown, 76, was sentenced to 10 years for his conviction on several crimes related to the drugstore chain’s accounting scandal. Five months earlier, former Rite Aid CEO Martin L. Grass was sentenced to eight years in prison.

In Birmingham, Ala., jurors have deliberated for a month in the fraud case against fired HealthSouth Corp. CEO Richard Scrushy. And three top Enron executives go to trial in Houston early next year.

In the Adelphia case, a second Rigas son, Michael, the company’s former executive vice president for operations, faces retrial in October after jurors were deadlocked on securities fraud and bank fraud charges against him.

Former Adelphia assistant treasurer Michael Mulcahey was tried with the Rigases but was acquitted of all charges.

As he left the courthouse in Manhattan and faced a phalanx of reporters and cameras, John Rigas was asked how it felt to watch his son be sentenced to prison.

“It just crushes me,” he said.

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