'No place like home': Ex-Nissan exec Greg Kelly returns after 3-year detainment in Japan

Three years after he was arrested in Tokyo and charged as part of a criminal case that generated headlines around the globe, former Nissan Motor Co. executive Greg Kelly made an emotional return home to Tennessee Monday. 

With his wife Dee by his side in a conference room inside Nashville International Airport, Kelly spoke to reporters about his detainment in a tiny cell, his trial and a Japanese  justice system that he described as "designed to convict." 

Though found guilty on one of the charges against him, Kelly was allowed to return to his Nashville-area home while he appeals the conviction. 

The Kellys were the last to deplane from their flight, and were welcomed by Sen. Bill Hagerty, who guided the couple through the airport toward the two dozen family members and friends who came to greet them.

"I want to hug you all at once," Dee Kelly said to the crowd of friends and family who greeted the Kellys in the administration office of BNA. One brought a pair of yellow balloons and another wore a blouse with an American flag shaped into a heart. 

"I mean it's like Dorothy in the 'Wizard of Oz,'" Greg Kelly said Monday at the airport. "There's no place like home." 

'A hostage justice system' 

Kelly was charged with helping conceal his boss Carlos Ghosn's compensation, and was found guilty in a Tokyo District Court last Thursday of helping the former Chief Executive evade Japan's pay-disclosure laws during one fiscal year. He acquitted on seven similar counts related to other fiscal years. 

The Tokyo District Court gave him a six-month suspended sentence for three years, meaning he likely won't serve prison time and was cleared of other charges. 

Hagerty, a former U.S. ambassador to Japan became involved in Kelly's case both in that capacity and later after he was elected to the Senate. He credited a host of top leaders and diplomats with getting Kelly back to the U.S., including current U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn. 

"Greg Kelly is a man who's had a storied career. He's been a remarkable businessman and leader here in the United States and helped build the economic alliance between the United States and Japan for decades," Hagerty said Monday. "He's had an important career at one of the most important companies here in Tennessee, a company that has built its presence here and employed thousands of Tennesseans." 

Kelly thanked Hagerty and said the support from the U.S. kept his spirits up during the ordeal.

"It really gave Dee and I some hope, a little bit of a spark, as we faced a prosecution 7,000 miles away from home in a hostage justice system for something that wasn't even a crime," Kelly said. 

Kelly and his defense team contend that he has not committed any crime and are appealing the one count upon which he was found guilty. 

"Kelly is completely innocent. We cannot accept the erroneous ruling that found him guilty for that final year," the defense, headed by Yoichi Kitamura, said in a statement.

Corporate intrigue 

The trial began in September 2020. By that time, Ghosn, the primary target of the case, out of Japanese prosecutors' reach. In late 2019, Ghosn evaded trial by fleeing to his native Lebanon in a concert-gear box. The country has no extradition treaty with Japan.

As a result, Ghosn's trial is indefinitely on hold. 

MORE: American father, son get Japan prison terms for ex-Nissan exec Carlos Ghosn's escape

Ghosn has said that he fled Japan because he didn't think he could get a fair trial. More than 99% of Japanese criminal trials result in convictions, according to an investigative paper published in the Journal of Legal Studies by the University of Chicago Press. 

"The system is designed to convict," said Kelly, a lawyer by training. "It is not a criminal justice system." 

Throughout the trial, Kelly insisted that it should have been resolved at the corporate level and it's not a criminal matter. 

"Greg has been subjected to circumstances corporate America could never contemplate," Hagerty previously said in a statement. "What should have been a corporate board room discussion landed in the Tokyo prosecutors office."

Prosecutors had previously asked that Kelly be sentenced to two years in prison. They alleged that Ghosn, Kelly and Nissan Motor Co. underreported Ghosn's compensation by 9 billion yen, or $78 million in filings over eight years ending in 2018. 

Ghosn headed Nissan for nearly 20 years after its French partner Renault sent him to lead a turnaround at the Japanese automaker, as it was near bankruptcy. 

Ghosn's salary was slashed from about 2 billion yen, to 1 billion yen ($10 million) in fiscal 2009, when the disclosure of individual executive pay became required in Japan. 

Prosecutors contend there was a plan to make up for the pay cut, which should've been documented in Nissan’s annual securities report.

Ghosn denies accusations of underreporting his compensation and misusing company funds. He maintains he was the victim of a corporate coup linked to a decline in the company’s financial performance.

Ghosn also denied allegations that he conspired with another Nissan executive, Toshiaki Ohnuma, to calculate unpaid compensation and try to have it secretly paid later.

During the trial, the prosecution presented various documents as evidence, calculating Ghosn's "deferred compensation." Nissan, as a corporate co-defendant, pleaded guilty and paid a 200 million yen ($1.7 million) fine in the case.

Chief Judge Kenji Shimotsu acknowledged the evidence didn't connect Kelly directly with what he called a conspiracy by Ghosn and Ohnuma.

Nissan officials who had been close to Ghosn accused him of amassing power for personal gain and planning a merger of Nissan with Renault. 

Renault owns 43% of Nissan, while Nissan owns 15% of Renault. The Japanese automaker is based in Yokohama and owns a third of Tokyo-based Mitsubishi Motor. 

Kelly believes he was singled out because he like Ghosn supported the idea of a merger between Nissan and Renault, to strengthen the alliance in a way Kelly thought would make the companies more equal while remaining competitive.

Solitary confinement 

Kelly was hired by Nissan's U.S. division in 1988 and became a representative director in 2012, the first American on Nissan's board. He was working at Nissan's North America Headquarters and living with his wife in Brentwood, prior to being arrested in November 2018. 

The former executive was asked to go to Japan for a meeting. He had suggested a video conference since he was scheduled for a neck fusion surgery. But Nissan booked him a jet and ensured him he'd be back in Tennessee within the week.

After landing in Japan, Kelly got into a van. When the driver asked if he could pull over to make a call, the van door opened and several men rushed in, saying they were prosecutors and translators. 

Kelly was taken to a detention center where he was handcuffed and searched and led to an interrogation room. He was kept in solitary confinement for 35 days, unable to call his wife. 

He compared the size area of the cell where he was kept in solitary confinement to the boardroom table inside a conference room in the airport. 

"You had to sit a certain way all day, there was no heat, lights were on 24 hours a day," Kelly said of the Japanese detention center. "You don't get much human contact, unless you're being interrogated by prosecutors." 

Tears began to swell on Monday as Kelly talked about the stress of the last three years, and how his wife Dee helped him manage. 

She took thousands of pages of detailed notes of the 74-day trial, as the Japanese court doesn't keep an English transcript, he said.

"She's strong, intelligent, and she doesn't give up," Greg Kelly said of his wife, Dee, who wore a gold cross necklace around her neck. 

The former Nissan executive said next up, he needs to drink a little beer and wine with friends, some of whom were surrounding him at the airport. 

"I met my two-year-old grandson a week ago," he said, holding back tears. "It was fantastic." 

Arcelia Martin covers growth and development for the Tennessean, a part of The USA TODAY Network. Reach Arcelia at amartin1@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @arcelitamartin.