Nearly three years later, former Nissan executive Greg Kelly is still wondering why the questions that led to his arrest and trial in Japan weren’t simply taken up in the automaker's corporate boardroom.
Kelly, an American lawyer who worked for three decades for Nissan, is awaiting a verdict in his trial in the case of Carlos Ghosn.
Ghosn, former Nissan chairman, jumped bail and fled to Lebanon in late 2019, leaving Kelly to face the charges of his under-reported compensation alone.
“I don’t think any of us were involved in a crime, or a criminal activity,” Kelly told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday in his Tokyo apartment, where he is out on bail. “We were involved in trying to solve a business problem, which was: What actions do you take that are lawful to retain a very valuable executive who was underpaid?”
Kelly says no one was involved in a crime, and being away from his family in the U.S. has been the hardest for him.
“It should have been resolved at the corporate level at Nissan. It’s not a criminal matter,” Kelly said.