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WWE Exec Guilty
Licensing Kickbacks Date: 2/14/2005 |
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Former WWE Senior Vice President James Bell pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court last week to mail fraud. He admitted he accepted kickbacks for steering licenses for WWE products to certain companies. Those companies were not disclosed, but there's a major ongoing civil suit filed by WWE against Jakks Pacific and a number of other defendants alleging that Jakks bribed its executive to steer a WWE license (see "WWE and Jakks in Courtroom Cage Match"). The criminal case against Bell and the civil suit between WWE and Jakks are technically not connected, but a guilty plea by Bell means that at least some of the allegations in the civil suit are true. Bell faces up to five years in prison and $1.9 million in court-ordered restitution, but it sounds like he's talking. |
| Source: ICv2 |
