TOKYO—A Tokyo court on Monday sentenced Americans Michael Taylor and Peter Taylor to prison for their roles in the escape of former Nissan Motor Co. chief Carlos Ghosn from Japan.
Michael Taylor, a 60-year-old former Green Beret, received a two-year sentence. Peter Taylor, his 28-year-old son, received a sentence of one year and eight months. The court said they would get credit for 90 days already served in Japan.
The sentences are the latest fallout from the flight of the former Nissan chairman from Japan in late December 2019, which allowed him to avoid a trial over financial charges. Mr. Ghosn, who had been living in Tokyo, hid inside a box and departed Japan on a private jet, ultimately arriving in Lebanon where he now lives. He denies wrongdoing and says he fled because he didn’t think he could get a fair trial.
The Taylors’ defense team had sought a suspended sentence that would have allowed the defendants to return home quickly. The defense argued the Taylors were motivated by an altruistic desire to rescue a man from a Japanese justice system they believed tortured people. After their extradition to Japan in March, the Taylors said they no longer believed that the Japanese justice system tortures people, based on their firsthand experience.
Presiding Judge Hideo Nirei said the father-son duo deserved prison time.
