{"id":21644,"date":"2014-04-18T07:49:05","date_gmt":"2014-04-18T11:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=21644"},"modified":"2014-04-18T07:49:05","modified_gmt":"2014-04-18T11:49:05","slug":"plea-bargain-could-keep-ecclestone-in-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/plea-bargain-could-keep-ecclestone-in-charge\/","title":{"rendered":"Plea bargain could keep Ecclestone in charge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bernie Ecclestone has denied rumours he will strike a plea deal with Munich prosecutors to stay out of jail and in charge of F1.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"ngg-singlepic ngg-left alignright\" style=\"margin: 5px 10px;\" alt=\"Bernie-Ecclestone-2\" src=\"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/gallery\/f1-2014-rif-images\/f1-2014-persons\/Bernie-Ecclestone-2.jpg\" width=\"384\" height=\"256\" \/>The sport&#8217;s chief executive faces up to a ten-year custodial sentence if found guilty at the end of a trial that begins in Germany next week.<\/p>\n<p>But rumours in Shanghai suggest the 83-year-old actually intends to strike a mid-trial deal with prosecutors whereby he pleads guilty but stays out of jail in order to remain in charge of formula one.<\/p>\n<p>Asked about the plea bargain rumours, Ecclestone insisted: &#8220;No, not at all.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m going into this trial to prove my innocence of what I&#8217;m being charged with,&#8221; he told the Telegraph.<\/p>\n<p>Donald Mackenzie, the F1 boss at the sport&#8217;s commercial rights owners CVC, has said that if Ecclestone is found guilty of a criminal offence, he will be sacked.<\/p>\n<p>But, citing a &#8220;CVC source&#8221;, Telegraph correspondent Daniel Johnson has reported from the scene of the Chinese grand prix that a plea bargain &#8220;would throw up a different set of circumstances&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Ecclestone responded: &#8220;You should ask Donald.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What can I say?&#8221; the Briton is quoted by the Guardian newspaper.\u00a0 &#8220;I can&#8217;t speak for him.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #888888;\"><em>\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bernie Ecclestone has denied rumours he will strike a plea deal with Munich prosecutors to stay out of jail and in charge of F1. The sport&#8217;s chief executive faces up to a ten-year custodial sentence if found guilty at the end of a trial that begins in Germany next week. But rumours in Shanghai suggest &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,1221,4820,5262,5340],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21644"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21644"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21645,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21644\/revisions\/21645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}