Judge Orders Adelphia Founder, Son To Prison On Fraud Conviction

NEW YORK (AP) _ Adelphia Communications founder John Rigas and his son Timothy have long fought one of the nation's largest corporate fraud cases, managing to stay out of prison for three years after

Thursday, June 28th 2007, 7:17 am

By: News On 6

NEW YORK (AP) _ Adelphia Communications founder John Rigas and his son Timothy have long fought one of the nation's largest corporate fraud cases, managing to stay out of prison for three years after they were convicted.

But as they face a court order to report to prison Aug. 13, the Rigases are almost out of options. They have asked an appeals court to reconsider the case and plan to ask the Supreme Court to intervene, but such requests are rarely granted.

U.S. District Judge Leonard Sand has given the men, once among the country's richest, a little less than seven weeks to put their affairs in order. He rescinded an order that had allowed them to remain free on bail while their appeal worked its way through the courts.

``Too much time has elapsed,'' Sand said at a hearing Wednesday.

Neither the 82-year-old family patriarch nor his 51-year-old son reacted when the judge handed down the order, which had been expected. Both appeared downcast afterward as they hugged relatives in a courthouse hallway. They declined to comment to reporters.

A federal appeals court in May cleared the way for the pair to begin serving time. The court upheld all but one count of their 2004 convictions on multiple charges of securities fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and bank fraud.

John Rigas was sentenced to 15 years, and Timothy Rigas, the company's former chief financial officer, to 20 years for their role in the collapse of one of the nation's largest cable television companies.

Sand noted that the delay in imposing the Rigases' punishment has been unusual. The sentencing was delayed for nearly a year while the men negotiated with prosecutors over restitution payments to Adelphia stockholders.

Prosecutors alleged the Rigases concealed nearly $2.3 billion in Adelphia debt from stockholders, making the company appear to have a healthy balance sheet even though its finances had became dangerously overextended.

They also accused the family of using the company as a personal ATM machine, withdrawing millions of dollars to buy everything from 100 pairs of bedroom slippers for Timothy Rigas to more than $3 million to produce a film by John Rigas' daughter.

Last year, another son, Michael Rigas, was sentenced to 10 months of home confinement after pleading guilty to a charge of making a false entry in a company record.

The investigation began after Adelphia announced its 2001 results in a March 2002 press release that included a footnote on the final page stating that the company had billions in liabilities not previously reported on its balance sheet.

At sentencing in 2005, John Rigas maintained his innocence.

``In my heart and in my conscience, I'll go to my grave really and truly believing that I did nothing but try to improve the conditions of my employees,'' he said.

The next step in the case will be for the federal Bureau of Prisons to decide where the Rigases will serve time. The sentencing judge, citing the elder Rigas' poor health, had previously said his term might be cut short if he serves at least two years.

Rigas, the son of Greek immigrants, borrowed money from his family in the early 1950s to buy a movie theater in Coudersport, Pa., about 20 miles south of the New York-Pennsylvania state line. In 1952, he bought the rights to wire the town for cable television and began his company.

The problems arose after John Rigas took Adelphia public in 1986 and the company grew rapidly in the late 1990s. To keep family control of the company, the Rigas family had to buy a number of shares equal to those issued to raise money.

The appeals court said Adelphia's public filings suggested that the Rigases had paid cash for the stocks when they actually had borrowed money to pay Adelphia and then caused Adelphia to use that cash to pay off other family debts.

Adelphia was the country's fifth-largest cable television company before its collapse in 2002. At its peak, it served more than 5 million customers in 31 states. Its stock value was nearly entirely erased after the company disclosed its off-balance-sheet debt.

The company filed for bankruptcy, severed its ties with the Rigases, and moved its corporate headquarters to Greenwood Village, Colo.

Comcast Corp. in Philadelphia and Time Warner Cable, a unit of Time Warner Inc., have since bought Adelphia's cable assets.