News: CPU UPDATE 1-U.S. judge bars retrial of three ex-Georgeson employees in bribery case

(Adds details on ruling, background on case)

A federal judge on Thursday ruled that prosecutors could not retry three people accused of paying bribes to learn how certain investors voted on corporate shareholder proposals.

U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns in Boston barred prosecutors from retrying three former employees of Georgeson LLC, a proxy solicitation firm owned by Computershare Ltd (CPU) , after an earlier trial ended in a mistrial in March.

Those three ex-Georgeson employees - Michael Sedlak, Charles Garske and Richard Gottcent - were on trial alongside their colleague Donna Ackerly. All four had pleaded not guilty to wire fraud and honest services wire fraud charges.

Prosecutors accused them of bribing an employee at Institutional Shareholder Services for details about how the proxy adviser’s investor clients voted on shareholder proposals.

The mistrial occurred when one of the 12 jurors withdrew from the case due to a family medical emergency after all of the evidence was presented but before closing arguments.

Lawyers for Sedlak, Garske and Gottcent consented to going forward with just 11 jurors. But Ackerly declined to consent, and prosecutors were only willing to go forward with 11 jurors if all four defendants agreed to that option.

Lawyers for Sedlak, Garske and Gottcent argued prosecutors could have agreed to sever Ackerly from the case and retry her alone.

Because they did not, they argued prosecutors were barred from retrying their clients given the U.S. Constitution’s general prohibition against being tried twice for the same crime, known as double jeopardy. Stearns agreed.

"Here, in withholding consent, the government assumed the risk that the consenting defendants’ double jeopardy claim would have merit, as I find it does," Stearns wrote.

Lawyers for the defendants and representatives for U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling in Massachusetts did not immediately respond to requests for comment.