Adelphia's Tim Rigas Got Married Days Before Starting Prison
By David Voreacos - August 14, 2007
Aug. 14 (Bloomberg) --Timothy Rigas, the former chief financial officer of Adelphia Communications Corp., married the mother of his young daughter nine days before starting a 20-year prison term for accounting fraud.
Rigas, 51, reported yesterday to the Federal Correctional Complex in Butner, North Carolina. On Aug. 4, Rigas married Katherine Fox near his home in Coudersport, Pennsylvania, said Annette Easton, a magisterial district judge in Potter County, Pennsylvania, who officiated.
``It was beautiful,'' said Easton, a longtime friend of both families. ``He has a baby and he has a woman who believes in him. She exhibited a giant leap of faith to stand by the man she loves and marry him.''
Fox and Rigas have a daughter, Hallie, who is about a year old, said Easton. He went to Butner with his 82-year-old father, John, the Adelphia founder who is serving 15 years in prison. They were convicted of looting the cable-television company and lying about its finances before its 2002 bankruptcy.
The impending imprisonment didn't mar the civil ceremony at the Patterson House, a rustic home in Allegheny Township near Coudersport, a town of 2,600 in the Allegheny Mountains.
``The family put that aside for the day,'' said Easton, who has Polaroid photographs of all 197 weddings she officiated. ``It was a day for the families to be together and enjoy the wedding. They were able to do that.''
`Courteous'
John Rigas founded Adelphia in Coudersport in 1952 and built it into the nation's fifth-biggest cable company, with 5.5 million subscribers in 2002. Rigas was ``courteous as always'' at a ceremony attended by his four children and six grandchildren, said Easton. He is appealing his conviction.
``Of course he's upset, but he has hope,'' Easton said. ``He believes he's innocent, and he believes in the judicial system. He has hope that he'll eventually be freed.''
One of John Rigas's sons, Michael, played touch football after the wedding with his nephews, Easton said. At the five-month trial in New York where his father and brother were convicted, jurors deadlocked on charges against him. He later avoided prison by pleading guilty to a lesser charge.
Before going to prison, John Rigas helped his three sons -- Timothy, Michael and James -- run Zito Media, a cable company with about 7,000 subscribers.
Fox, who works at Zito, didn't immediately return a call seeking comment. She attended the trial in New York, where prosecutors said the Rigases used Adelphia as a personal piggy bank to buy company stock, steal cash advances, pay for residences around the country and fund Timothy Rigas's passion for golf.
Prison Visits
He is now nearly 400 miles to the south in a low-security facility with 1,295 inmates. No conjugal visits are allowed, said Bureau of Prisons spokesman Mike Truman. Prison visits ``shall be conducted in a quiet, orderly and dignified manner,'' according to procedures outlined on the prison's Web site.
``Handshaking, embracing and kissing are ordinarily permitted within the bounds of good taste and only at the beginning and at the end of the visit,'' it said.
John and Timothy Rigas still face other legal hurdles. They are scheduled for a tax evasion trial on July 7, 2008, in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
Assistant U.S. Attorney George Rocktashel declined comment.
Last year, Comcast Corp.and Time Warner Inc. bought Adelphia's cable properties for $17.6 billion. On Jan. 3, a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge in New York approved the company's plan to emerge from bankruptcy, pay creditors and cease doing business. The company is now based in Greenwood Village, Colorado.
The case is U.S. v. Rigas, 1:02-cr-01236, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
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