A federal magistrate judge on Friday approved the extradition of a former Green Beret and his son who are wanted in Japan for allegedly helping Nissan’s former chief executive escape that country last year to avoid criminal prosecution.
The State Department will make the final decision on whether to send Michael Taylor, 59, and Peter, 27, back to Japan to face charges that they hid Carlos Ghosn in a large box last December and spirited him out of the country on a private jet.
US Magistrate Judge Donald Cabell rejected defense attorneys’ claims that the Taylors didn’t break any Japanese laws by helping Ghosn flee the country, finding there was probable cause to believe they had done so by “harboring or enabling the escape of a criminal.”
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Paul Kelly, one of the lawyers who represents the Taylors, said in a statement, “We had hoped the Court would not simply defer to Japan’s request but understand the limited role of the judiciary in extradition matters.”
“The issues essential to the future of the Taylors will now be addressed by the State Department, which, unlike the Court, can take into consideration Japan’s frequent refusal to extradite its own citizens in serious matters, the lack of precedent in Japan for ever charging “bail jumping,” and the dreadful prison and prosecutorial conditions in Japan which have drawn the scorn of the world,” he said.
The Taylors, who have been in custody since they were arrested in May at their Harvard home, face up to three years in prison if convicted in Japan. Japanese authorities allege the Taylors were paid more than $1.3 million to help Ghosn flee while he was on bail awaiting trial for financial crimes related to his leadership at Nissan.
Cabell, who held an extradition hearing last week in US District Court in Boston, ordered the government to file certified extradition documents with the State Department within seven days. In his 11-page ruling, he found there was probable cause to believe that Peter Taylor traveled to Japan at least three times and visited Ghosn on at least seven occasions in the months before his escape. Then, on Dec. 28, 2019, Peter Taylor arrived in Tokyo and checked into a room at the Grand Hyatt, where he met with Ghosn for about an hour.
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The following day, Michael Taylor and a longtime associate, George-Antoine Zayek, arrived at Japan’s Kansai International Airport on a private jet that Taylor had leased, according to court filings by federal prosecutors. They were allegedly carrying large audio-equipment-style cases and told airport workers they were musicians on their way to a concert.
That night, Ghosn was hiding in one of the boxes when it passed through the security checkpoint without being screened and was loaded back onto the jet with Michael Taylor and Zayek for a flight to Turkey, according to prosecutors.
Two days later, Ghosn publicly announced that he was in Lebanon, which has no extradition treaty with Japan. He has maintained he is innocent and said he didn’t believe he could get a fair trial.
In court filings, lawyers for the Taylors said bail jumping and assisting someone with bail jumping are not crimes in Japan. They argued that the Taylors should not be extradited because prosecutors had misinterpreted Japanese law when charging them with enabling the escape of a criminal. They said that law applies only to those who help someone flee the scene of a crime, flee arrest, or flee confinement.
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But Cabell cited a previous federal decision that found “extradition proceedings are not vehicles for United States federal courts to interpret and opine on foreign law.”
The Taylors’ lawyers said they will ask the State Department to consider Michael Taylor’s history as a decorated military veteran who served in the Special Forces for over a decade. In 1988, he was recruited by the US government to go undercover and infiltrate a Lebanese-organized crime ring that spanned from the Middle East to Massachusetts. In the early 1990s, he founded an international security company that provided protection for corporations. On numerous occasions, according to court filings, he extracted people from high-risk situations around the world.
Taylor and his son are US citizens.
The State Department “can consider the heroism and courage of Michael Taylor who has rescued kidnapped American children abroad and who has worked with US law enforcement and intelligence at great risk, achieving stunning well-documented victories over criminals and terrorists,” Kelly said.
Shelley Murphy can be reached at shelley.murphy@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @shelleymurph.
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Judge approves extradition to Japan of Massachusetts men accused of helping former Nissan CEO escape - The Boston Globe
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