Adelphia Jurors Are Instructed by Judge

The judge at the fraud trial of Adelphia Communications Corp. founder John Rigas and two of his sons instructed jurors Thursday on how to weigh the charges after a prosecutor told the panel that the Rigases had treated the company like “their own private ATM.”

U.S. District Judge Leonard Sand read 71 of 108 pages of legal instructions to jurors and will finish today. The panel, which began hearing the case March 1, probably will begin deliberating on the 23-count indictment Monday, Sand said.

Sand’s explanation followed rebuttal arguments by Assistant U.S. Atty. Richard Owens, who told jurors that John Rigas, 79, and his sons, Michael and Timothy, overdrew Adelphia’s cash management system by hundreds of millions of dollars. Owens assailed defense arguments that the Rigases deserved the advances because they put money into the system.

“When the defense argues that they were entitled to the money because they put cash in, that’s just wrong,” Owens told jurors in New York. “They were overdrawn at the bank in a big, big, big way. And they covered this overdraft with money borrowed on other people’s credit.”

Prosecutors allege that the Rigases and a fourth executive, Michael Mulcahey, hid $2.3 billion in debt at Adelphia, the No. 5 U.S. cable television operator, and lied about finances and operations.

Defense attorneys argued over the last week that the four men never intended to defraud the company, which entered Bankruptcy Court in June 2002.

The Rigases and Mulcahey, 46, are accused of conspiracy, securities fraud, wire fraud and bank fraud. The Rigases, who did not testify during the trial, live in Coudersport, Pa., where Adelphia was based.

In his rebuttal, Owens focused on family purchases of $1.6 billion in company securities. Most of that money came from syndicated loans taken jointly by Adelphia and the Rigases, which the company never disclosed to shareholders and bondholders before March 2002, Owens said.

The prosecutor argued that the Rigases must have discussed how they would repay Adelphia.

Owens asked if Michael Rigas, 50, “never came home from work one day and said, ‘Gee, Dad, how are we going to pay for that?’ ” Owens questioned whether Michael Rigas said to his brother, Timothy, 47, “ ‘Gee, Tim, have you thought about how we’re going to pay for the stock?’ ”

When Owens finished, defense attorneys asked for a mistrial. They said Owens made unfair assertions about conversations not in evidence, and their clients couldn’t rebut his statements because they exercised their right not to testify.

Sand denied the mistrial motions, saying that the prosecutor could make such an argument in a conspiracy case.