CHICAGO: Michael Taylor, the former US Army Green Beret who masterminded and executed the daring escape from Japan of fraud-accused former Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn, claims he was “betrayed” by his client.
Taylor and his son Peter, who consulted Ghosn on search engine optimization, were both charged and convicted of helping Ghosn escape from Tokyo to Lebanon, via Istanbul, in December 2019, in a large music Box.
Taylor made the comments during a Wednesday (September 27) appearance on the Ray Hanania radio show, hosted by the Arab American Radio Network and sponsored by Arab News.
Taylor spent two years in prison while Peter served 18 months, claiming their conditions of incarceration were the equivalent of “torture”.
Taylor claimed that Ghosn never contacted him or his son while they were in the Japanese prison. He added that he also felt betrayed by the U.S. government and former President Donald Trump.
“Yes. We were definitely betrayed. My poor son Peter had nothing to do with the operation itself. He wasn’t even in the country when I took Carlos Ghosn out of Japan. Coincidentally, he was there because he saw Carlos before doing some search engine optimization work for him, boosting his good articles and reducing the bad ones. So yeah, we were definitely betrayed. That’s no problem ” Taylor said when asked if Ghosn had kept his promises.
“But we have also been betrayed by the Trump administration, by President (Donald) Trump and (former US Secretary of State) Mike Pompeo. It wasn’t a crime. However, if there are deals involved and major defense contractors, you know, people start making excuses to shake things up and accept them, and ask the attorney general of the United States to push a little louder than usual, and to ask the State Department to apply pressure. succumb to the Japanese, and all the lobbyists get involved.
“And none of the politicians want to step up and do anything, including like senators from your own state, like Elizabeth Warren and (Ed) Markey. They didn’t want to get involved. Well, you know, some of the interesting things are that the Japanese spend $138 million a year on lobbyists inside the Beltway.
Ghosn, who now lives in Beirut, was arrested in Japan in 2018 for underreporting income and other corporate crimes, which he denied. The Lebanese authorities refuse to extradite their citizens and have opted for a local trial which began in early September.
But even though Ghosn, a multimillionaire, has enjoyed freedom in Beirut for nearly four years, Taylor said Ghosn never contacted him to express gratitude for his help, sympathy for his imprisonment, or for the help settle his growing legal debt.
“No…and Peter was not contacted (by Ghosn) either. However, Peter went to Lebanon and he was not contacted. Greg Kelly contacted us, he was just monitoring us to see how we were doing. “We were going, mentally and physically, which was really, really nice of him and shows what a gentleman he is,” Taylor told Arab News when asked if Ghosn had ever contacted them during the trial or during their incarceration.
Greg Kelly is a former Nissan executive who was convicted in 2022 of helping Ghosn break Japan’s salary disclosure laws, and sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for three years.
Taylor said he still hoped Ghosn would meet the terms of an undisclosed financial agreement for his services and eventually cover his unpaid legal fees of more than $1 million.
But Taylor said he sold the rights to his story to MGM, which is preparing to make a film with actor Sam Rockwell as him and Javier Bardem as Ghosn. Whether he gets money from the film depends on its success, he said. Rockwell and Bardem both won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in separate films: Bardem in “No Country for Old Men” (2008) and Rockwell in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” (2017).
“Well, right now there is an agreement to pay certain amounts, but that agreement is way too long. I have $842,000 left out of pocket for legal fees. That’s exactly what I spent. I haven’t gotten it back yet. It’s my first priority to get that back first,” Taylor said.
“Yes, I received compensation. However, I still have over a million dollars to pay in legal fees.
Taylor declined to detail how much Ghosn agreed to pay him: “I don’t want to go into all the details. But if I saved you, Ray, or if I saved (attorney) Dr. (William) Cleary, and we had a prior agreement that if you paid legal fees, wouldn’t you feel responsible for pay them. ?”
Ghosn described a four-part Apple+ TV series as “interesting” but also “unfortunate” because it failed to tell “the whole story.” He seemed particularly disturbed that during an interview in the documentary, Ghosn described himself as “the victim” and made no mention of the Taylors’ plight.
“Be careful, Carlos barely made time compared to us. My son Peter spent 13 and a half months in solitary confinement and I spent 17 months in solitary confinement. And during this period, six and a half months, I was only allowed to take two showers. You are sitting on the floor. The lights are on 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and nothing. You don’t get any help. You get nothing. And there is no heating in winter. So you have frostbite on your hands and feet. In summer, people are constantly getting heat stroke and being kicked out of there.
“The United Nations states that 15 or more consecutive days of solitary confinement constitutes torture. Seventeen months is much longer than 15 days. So it’s definitely torture. You are also allowed very little communication. You are only allowed to write four letters per month.
Taylor appeared to hold back his deepest feelings, acknowledging that he remains hopeful that Ghosn will live up to what he sees as broken promises.
“You know Ray, it’s one of those questions where I would say life has a lot of weird twists and turns and you never know what might happen in the near future,” Taylor said when asked if he was trying to hold back harsher criticism of Ghosn for his alleged betrayal.
Asked if he would testify in Ghosn’s defense if forced to face charges outside Lebanon, Taylor replied: “Would you testify in Ghosn’s defense?”
“I have nothing to say in his defense. Remember, in his own words, he is the victim. Nobody else. He is the victim. He is the victim,” Taylor emphasized.
Taylor said he was introduced to Ghosn by friends who suggested he help the wealthy and high-profile former Nissan CEO. He said his sister-in-law was Ghosn’s first cousin.
Dr. William Cleary, an American who spent more than 30 years practicing law in Japan and who tried unsuccessfully to convince federal prosecutors that the Taylors had committed no crimes, also appeared on the radio show to claim that Taylor had been falsely accused. .
The Ray Hanania radio show airs every Wednesday in Detroit on WNZK AM 690 radio and in Washington, DC on WDMV AM 700 on the Arab American Radio Network.
You can listen to the podcast of the radio show by visiting ArabNews.com/rayradioshow.