Recluse behind Zara is now world's third richest man

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's Amancio Ortega, elevated by Forbes to become the third richest person in the world, may have discovered fashion's secret of eternal youth.

The "fast fashion" tycoon's estimated net worth of $57 billion is built on a formula of endless renewal, with dresses and blouses displayed in thousands of Zara stores worldwide for only a few days before they are taken off the rails and replaced with an even newer line of must-have garments.

Customers know they have to buy the clothes quickly if they want them because they will not be available for long. The now-global strategy also encourages shoppers to return frequently to see new ranges and trends.

In a country with sky-high unemployment and businesses going to the wall, Spain's richest man is a rare self-made mogul amid a corporate culture dominated by family dynasties.

Ortega overtook U.S. investor Warren Buffett and luxury group chief Bernard Arnault of France to become the third richest person on Forbes' 2013 annual ranking of billionaires on Monday. Ahead of Ortega are Mexican telecoms boss Carlos Slim at No.1, followed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

The aggressively managed Inditex has more than 6,000 stores in some 90 countries and includes such brands as Ortega's flagship Zara, Zara Home, Massimo Dutti and others. It is the world's biggest fashion retailer ahead of Gap and Hennes & Mauritz, making 840 million garments a year.

Inditex says it does not advertise, and with celebrities such as Kate Middleton - wife to Britain's Prince William - wearing Zara clothes, it may not have to.

Ortega's empire is a cash-rich business with a market capitalization of 65 billion euros ($84 billion) that is thriving amid the deep economic gloom that is engulfing its home country. The shares rose 67 percent last year, bucking a slump in consumer spending in Spain.

Ortega, a stocky 76-year-old who favors blue blazers, open-necked white shirts and casual trousers, took home 666 million euros in gross dividends thanks to his 59 percent stake in Inditex, which is worth 38 billion euros at current prices.

He has also largely defied the gloom in Spain's property sector through clever purchases and management of real estate. His Zara stores are often positioned in premium locations near other more luxurious brands as part of his marketing strategy.

PRIVACY GUARDED

Yet surprisingly little is known about Ortega, despite the best efforts of Spain's intrusive celebrity press.

He has guarded his privacy so jealously that the company has only released one photograph of him, when the company listed in 2001. The nation's most successful entrepreneur routinely turns down interviews.

"To Amancio Ortega: he didn't open any doors, nor did he close any windows," wrote one biographer in a dedication.

According to the Spanish press, Ortega lives in a comfortable but not lavish apartment with his second wife, Flora.

His daughter Marta is widely expected to take over the fashion empire one day and has undergone training at Inditex, including working in a store, although the firm won't confirm she will be the successor.

Ortega became Spain's richest man when Inditex listed on the stock exchange but he did not attend the inaugural ringing of the bell at the bourse and never goes to shareholder meetings.

"Reclusive", "secretive" or "reserved" are the usual descriptions for Ortega, a man occasionally seen at equestrian competitions with his family, who manages to maintain his privacy partly thanks to living in the rainy city of A Coruna in northwest Spain, 300 miles from the capital.

Biographers who say they have had access to him tell a rags-to-riches story: Ortega left school when he was 12 to work as a shirt-maker's delivery boy, to help support his poor family.

He learnt fast and began making gowns and lingerie in his living room along with his first wife, Rosalia Mera.

He realized customers wanted affordable versions of catwalk trends and opened his first Zara shop in A Coruna in 1975. Over the years, he has added more labels to the business, from teen brand Bershka to the more upmarket Massimo Dutti.

Experts credit Zara with transforming the business through "fast fashion". Affordable imitations of catwalk designs can move from drawing-board to stores within two weeks -- and poor sellers are pulled off the shop floor even quicker.

ACTIVE ROLE

Ortega handed over chairmanship of the company to Pablo Isla in 2011 but is thought to retain an active role in the business, where security is tight at its headquarters.

Visitors are picked up from A Coruna in chauffeur-driven cars and taken to the company's campus a 20-minute drive away, at Arteixo in the middle of the countryside. The complex sprawls across an area equivalent to 11 soccer pitches.

Reuters was attentively shown around by members of the company's communications team, but it is the firm's policy to talk more about the company than its founder, and there are scant biographical details in the few books about him.

Ortega does, however, talk to the workers when he visits the A Coruna headquarters.

There are bright, modern, open-plan floors where designers sit close to teams who talk directly to representatives in the firm's stores, feeding back customers' reactions to the clothes.

The slickest part of the operation is found at the logistics depot, where computer-controlled overhead conveyer belts drop clothes stitched by suppliers into boxes to be sent out to shops around the globe.

The highlight of the visit, though, is to "Fashion Street", a mall within the complex that includes a Zara store and another from the furnishings brand Zara Home.

Here every window dressing and table layout is meticulously trialed and photographed, so that stores can replicate the most eye-catching displays from Madrid to Tokyo, from London to Sao Paulo, an example of the tight control practiced by the company.

"The till works but you can't buy anything here," explained an Inditex spokesman in the Zara Home store, showing Reuters around its tables of artfully arranged scented candles, folded napkins, towels and racks of bed linen.

Beyond retail, Ortega has investments in two main funds: Pontegadea Inversiones, in which he is the majority owner with 97.2 percent and his daughter Marta has 2.8 percent; and Pontegadea Inmobiliaria. ($1 = 0.7702 euros)

(Additional reporting by Tracy Rucinski, Jose Elias Rodriguez and Tomas Cobos; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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Bobby Rogers, co-founder of Motown group the Miracles, dies at 73

DETROIT (Reuters) - Singer Bobby Rogers, a founding member of the hit-making Motown group the Miracles along with Smokey Robinson, died on Sunday in suburban Detroit after a lengthy illness, family members and associates said. He was 73.

Rogers was a tenor in the original Motown lineup of the group that also included Robinson as the lead singer, bass vocalist Warren "Pete" Moore, baritone Ronnie White and the quintet's lone female vocalist, Claudette Rogers.

Claudette Rogers, who became Claudette Robinson after marrying the group's star in 1963 and left the group a year later, was Bobby Rogers' first cousin. She and Smokey Robinson later divorced.

"My cousin, Robert 'Bobby' Rogers, who was like a brother to me, lost his battle and succumbed," she said in a statement issued through the Detroit-based Motown Alumni Association.

"He had a sparkling personality that was loved by everyone," she told the Detroit Free Press newspaper. "People always commented on the tall one with the glasses."

Smokey Robinson, born hours apart from Rogers in the same Detroit hospital on February 19, 1940, saluted his former compatriot in his own statement, saying: "Another soldier in my life has fallen."

"Bobby Rogers was my brother and a really good friend," he said. "I am really going to miss him. I loved him very much."

Billy Wilson, president of the Motown Alumni Association, said Rogers died at his home in Southfield, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit.

The Miracles grew out of an earlier quintet of high school performers called the Five Chimes that formed in the mid-1950s and changed its name to the Matadors after several roster changes capped by Claudette Rogers' admission to the group.

Introduced to Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr., the group changed its name to the Miracles and became one of the first acts signed to his Tamla Records imprint and went on to record Motown's first million-selling hit single, "Shop Around."

The group, which later changed its name again to Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, ultimately released 30 singles that charted in the Top 40, including such Motown classics as "You've Really Got a Hold on Me," "Going to a Go-Go," "I Second That Emotion," "Tears of a Clown" and "Tracks of My Tears."

One of Rogers' most notable vocal contributions with the group was his two-part harmony with Robinson on "You've Really Got a Hold on Me," which was later covered by the Beatles. Rogers' voice also is heard in the background of the Marvin Gaye track "What's Going On," uttering the phrase: "It's just a groovy party, man, I can dig it."

He shared songwriting credits with Robinson on a number of songs recorded by the Miracles, such as "Going to a Go-Go," and other groups, including the Temptations hit "The Way You Do the Things You Do" and "First I Look at the Purse" by the Contours.

Rogers was inducted with other members of the Miracles into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, about 25 years after the controversial solo induction of Robinson.

Miracles vocalist Ronnie White died in 1995.

(Additional reporting by Patricia Reaney in New York; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Eric Beech)

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Richard Burton immortalized in Hollywood next to Taylor

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - British actor Richard Burton finally received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame next to that of his two-time wife, Elizabeth Taylor, on Friday, nearly 30 years after his death.

Welsh-born Burton, who died in 1984, received the career honor as part of the 50th anniversary of ancient Egypt movie drama "Cleopatra," in which he and co-star Taylor began their storied and tumultuous love affair.

The couple's adopted daughter, Maria Burton, accepted the honor of the iconic terrazzo and brass star along Hollywood Boulevard in the historical heart of the U.S. film industry.

Burton was nominated for an Oscar seven times between 1953 and 1978 but never won the prize.

Actor and fellow Welshman Michael Sheen spoke at the unveiling and recalled the awe he felt when Burton and Taylor, one of Hollywood's most famous couples, visited the village where Sheen grew up.

"The same beach that I built my boyhood sand castles (on) and learned to failingly swim - it was that same beach, that one legendary day, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor descended from the heavens, like gods from Olympus, in a helicopter ... and landed on those sands," Sheen said.

"They stepped out swathed in luxurious fur coats - it was the '70s - and walked among us for too short a time," he added.

Burton, whose star is the 2,941th installed, starred in 11 films with Taylor, including "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" in 1966 and "The Taming of the Shrew" in 1967.

The couple's scandalous love affair during 1964's "Cleopatra" was made into a U.S. television movie "Liz & Dick," starring Lindsay Lohan, last year.

Burton and Taylor wed for the first time in 1964 and divorced in 1974. They remarried the following year, but that marriage lasted just nine months.

Burton, who was born Richard Jenkins, was married five times and died in 1984 from a cerebral hemorrhage at age 58. Taylor, who married eight times, died in 2011 at age 79.

(Reporting by Alan Devall; Writing by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Sandra Maler)

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Actress Jennifer Lawrence's "Silver Linings" clothes fetch $12,000

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Clothing worn by Jennifer Lawrence in her Oscar-winning role as an outspoken young widow in "Silver Linings Playbook" beat expectations by taking in about $12,000 at auction.

The wool, full-length winter coat worn by Lawrence in the Oscar-nominated comedy topped all items, selling for $4,652 in the three-day online auction, Los Angeles auction house Nate D. Sanders said on Friday.

The memorabilia dealer had expected the items to fetch between $500 and $1,500 each following the 22-year-old's Best Actress win at the Academy Awards on Sunday.

Lawrence also won awards from the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild in January for her "Silver Linings Playbook" performance.

The custom-tailored white pants Lawrence wore during the film's climactic ballroom dance scene with co-star Bradley Cooper went for $3,493, and a package of a teal sports bra and blue long-sleeved shirt sold for $3,175.

A black tank top from Lawrence's wardrobe, but not worn in the film, fetched $624.

Movie studios often hand off costumes to auction houses, where even small outfits can bring in high prices from fans and collectors.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Xavier Briand)

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Bieber apologizes to angry fans for late UK show

LONDON (Reuters) - Canadian singer Justin Bieber apologized on Tuesday after fans booed him for turning up nearly two hours late to a London concert, blaming technical issues for his late performance.

The 19-year-old teen idol had been scheduled to take the stage at London's O2 Arena at 8.30 p.m. but said in a Twitter message that the time was pushed back to 9.35 p.m. due to "some technical issues".

Many fans, and the venue itself, appeared not to have got the message after complaints poured in that Bieber was nearly two hours late when he finally appeared at around 10.20 p.m..

"Last night I was scheduled after 3 opening acts to go on stage at 935 not 830 but because of some technical issues," Bieber wrote on Twitter, the micro-blogging site where he boasts the largest following of more than 35 million people.

"I got on at 10:10..so...I was 40 min late to stage. there is no excuse for that and I apologize for anyone we upset. However it was great show and I'm proud of that."

In the third of four tweets, he vowed to run on time on Tuesday, and in the final message said his relationship with the media, which picked up on fans' displeasure following Monday night's concert, was "not always easy but I'm trying".

The popular Sun tabloid newspaper said many fans, some of them as young as five years old, had gone home by the time Bieber began while others voiced frustration.

There was no on-stage apology, although the O2 Arena did later address fans, popularly known as "Beliebers", apologizing in a Twitter message to "all the Justin Bieber fans for the lateness of his show tonight".

Bieber is due to play the same venue on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

Many people voiced their frustration at having to wait, while others reacted angrily to the headlines.

"Justin Bieber is my fave person but 2 hours late on stage is a joke!" fan Jess wrote on Twitter. "Does he realize that he has fans under the age of 10?"

Others jumped to his defense early on Tuesday.

"Feel really bad for @justinbieber now! Yes he was late but he put on a flipping good show! It was amazing," said one.

Not all reviewers were quite so kind for the singer who was named by Forbes magazine in 2012 as the third most powerful celebrity in the world.

London's Evening Standard awarded the "Baby" singer two stars, saying he turned "victory into defeat".

"By the end, the O2 was barely half-full and when Bieber asked 'Who's seen me play before?', he might have been better wondering who would spend time, money and adoration on seeing him again," wrote critic John Aizlewood.

Bieber's visit to Britain has probably not been his best.

On March 2, the day after he turned 19, he tweeted "worst birthday" amid reports some of his entourage were turned away from a London nightclub because they could not supply adequate proof of their age.

Bieber, who was discovered on YouTube in 2008, last month became the youngest artist to land five chart-topping albums in the United States following the release of his latest record, "Believe Acoustic".

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

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Schwarzenegger flexes muscles again in bodybuilding world

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Arnold Schwarzenegger is going back to his bodybuilding roots.

The action movie star turned politician will become group executive editor for the magazines Flex, and Muscle & Fitness, writing monthly columns in the publications and their online websites, American Media said on Friday.

The "Terminator" star, who began his Hollywood career as a bodybuilder and went on to win five Mr. Universe titles, held the same position at the magazines before he was elected California governor in 2003.

"Bodybuilding has always been part of my life, and I know Muscle & Fitness and Flex will continue to motivate others - as it did me - to lift weights and lead a healthy lifestyle (and) promote the sport of bodybuilding," Schwarzenegger said in a statement.

Schwarzenegger's relationship with the two magazines goes back to 1968, when he was just 21, and he has appeared on their covers more than 60 times.

Schwarzenegger, 65, has taken a diverse path since stepping down as California governor in January 2011, returning to movies in films like "The Last Stand" and "The Expendables 2," writing an autobiography, and launching an eponymous global policy think tank at the University of Southern California's Los Angeles campus.

Muscle & Fitness and Flex are part of American Media Inc, whose other titles include the National Enquirer tabloid, and celebrity magazine OK!

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Eric Walsh)

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Ex-NBA star Rodman says North Korea's Kim wants Obama to call

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Dennis Rodman, the former NBA star known more for his body piercings and tattoos than international diplomacy skills, said on Sunday he returned from North Korea with a message from its leader Kim Jong-un for President Barack Obama - "call me."

Rodman appeared on ABC's "This Week" program a few days after an unlikely meeting with Kim in the North Korea capital Pyongyang, where Rodman was working on a documentary about basketball.

With the international community concerned about North Korea's nuclear weapons program and continued belligerence, Rodman had extremely rare access to Kim. They attended a basketball game, where they were seen laughing and talking at courtside, and also had dinner together.

"He wants Obama to do one thing - call him," Rodman said. "He said, 'If you can, Dennis - I don't want (to) do war. I don't want to do war.' He said that to me."

Rodman said he told Kim, who followed his father and grandfather as leader of the isolated totalitarian nation in December 2011, that his love of basketball could serve as a foundation of a relationship with the U.S. president, who also is a basketball fan and plays regularly.

"(Kim) loves basketball. And I said the same thing. I said, 'Obama loves basketball.' Let's start there," Rodman said.

The U.S. government disavowed any connection to Rodman's trip. When asked about Kim's "call me" message, Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, said on Sunday the United States already has communication channels with North Korea.

"We have urged the North Korean leadership to heed President Obama's call to choose the path of peace and come into compliance with its international obligations," Hayden said. "Instead of spending money on staging sporting events, the North Korean regime should focus on the well-being of its own people who have been starved, imprisoned and denied their human rights."

Last week, Rodman spoke warmly of Kim, 30, and described him as "an awesome kid."

On "This Week," he defended his new friendship with a man considered a violator of human rights and a threat to world peace by saying, "I'm not apologizing for him. You know, he's a good guy to me. Guess what? He's my friend. I don't condone what he does ... (but) as a person to person - he's my friend."

When pressed on North Korea's human rights record, Rodman said, "But as far as what he does, you deal with it."

Rodman, appearing in the interview wearing a jacket covered with images of U.S. dollars, a baseball cap and big sunglasses, dismissed Kim's comments about wanting to destroy the United States as rhetoric stemming from his father.

He called him a strong and "very humble" man who "loves power, he loves control."

Rodman said he intends to return to North Korea someday.

Rodman played on five NBA championship teams during his basketball career, which ran from 1986 to 2000. He played for five teams and in his peak years he was the league's top rebounder and one of its best defenders. He was chosen for the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011.

Rodman's basketball skills were matched by his flamboyance - party lifestyle, multi-colored hair, blankets of tattoos, piercings in his ears, nose, lips and eyebrows and showing up in a wedding gown, complete with veil, to promote his autobiography.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Will Dunham)

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Oprah Winfrey to deliver commencement address at Harvard

BOSTON (Reuters) - Talk show host, entrepreneur and philanthropist Oprah Winfrey will deliver this year's graduation address at Harvard University, the Ivy League school said on Monday.

"Oprah's journey from her grandmother's Mississippi farm to becoming one of the world's most admired women is one of the great American success stories," Harvard President Drew Faust said in announcing her selection.

Winfrey will join a long list of politicians, policy makers, captains of industry and authors - including George Marshall, Bill Gates and J.K. Rowling - who have offered their wisdom and advice to Harvard's graduating classes.

She will speak at the school's 362nd graduation exercises on May 30.

Long a fixture on Time Magazine's 100 most influential people list, the 59-year-old Winfrey has been popular on the college commencement circuit, speaking at Stanford University, Duke University and Spelman College in recent years.

(Reporting By Svea Herbst-Bayliss; editing by John Wallace)

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Nigella Lawson pays homage to Italy in new cookbook

NEW YORK (Reuters) - British television celebrity and best-selling cookbook author Nigella Lawson recalls that when the other girls wanted to be French, she wanted to be Italian.

"As a teenager, what drew me was the combination of familial warmth and glamour that was somehow both earthy and chic," Lawson said about Italy, where she lived between high school and college.

Her eighth cookbook, "Nigellissima," focuses exclusively on 120 Italian-inspired recipes.

"Somehow by speaking Italian, I came into the person I am," the 53-year-old, Oxford-educated cook added.

London-based Lawson, who is appearing in the U.S. cooking show "The Taste," spoke to Reuters about creating recipes and about how her most joyful moment in the kitchen is opening the fridge, seeing what is inside and trying to make something taste good from it, which she admits is "absolutely the antithesis of a cookery book."

Q: Is this your first Italian cookbook?

A: "It sort of is, and isn't. It's the first that's just Italian, or Italian-inspired. Because Italy has been such a big influence in my life, in my cooking life, there are actually more Italian recipes in my other books. But this is the only time I've done a book with such a narrow focus geographically."

Q: How would you describe your take on Italian cuisine?

A: "I suppose what I bring to it is a slightly more contemporary, urban edge in the sense that I live a busy modern city life, whereas so many Italian recipes come from a time when women were expected to spend a long time in the kitchen. I suppose I bring a kind of temporary impatience because it's the way I live now."

Q: How did you learn to cook?

A: "I've never learned to cook. I just cooked from when I was a child, always. I come from a large family and my mother believed in child labor, so I've cooked since I was about six. I do come from a food-obsessed family. That helps. I did have to teach myself how to cook weighing and measuring. It was an education in itself, and an interesting one."

Q: Do you create the recipes in your books?

A: "Well, they're mine, and if they're not I will always say. I think it's improper not to credit recipes. Often I credit someone even if I've changed it enormously because I feel for the reader it's very interesting to see the evolution of a recipe. So I will go back through the mists of time (to trace) how this recipe evolved."

Q: How does being a home cook, rather than a professional chef, influence your approach to preparing food?

A: "Cooking for me is in part an evangelical zeal that I want to share. If I've loved a book that I've read, I want to share that as well. A chef needs to feel they're being original. I just have the home cook sensibility: not wanting to waste money or time.

"Generally I make sure that if I buy a certain stash of ingredients, I can cook many different dishes. Cooking is not about heaping in ingredient after ingredient after ingredient. If I read a recipe and I'm exhausted by the time I finish reading the ingredients list, I know I'm never going to cook it."

Q: Did you enjoy co-hosting the reality TV show "The Taste?"

A: "I had a certain amount of trepidation but I really enjoyed it ... Because it was really about the taste of the food and not about personalities, I didn't think it was going to descend into the cruelty of some reality TV, that would appall me."

Sicilian Pasta with Tomatoes, Garlic & Almonds

Serves 6

1 1⁄4 pounds fusilli lunghi or other pasta of your choice

salt for pasta water, to taste

8 ounces cherry or grape tomatoes

6 anchovy fillets

2 tablespoons golden raisins

2 cloves garlic, peeled

2 tablespoons capers, drained

1/3 cup skinned almonds

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil leaves from small bunch

basil (approx. 1 cup, packed )

Put abundant water on to boil for the pasta, waiting for it to boil before salting it. Add the pasta and cook following the package instructions, though start checking it a good 2 minutes before it's meant to be ready.

While the pasta is cooking, make the sauce by putting all the remaining ingredients, except the basil, into a processor and blitzing until you have a nubby-textured sauce.

Just before draining the pasta, remove a cupful of pasta-cooking water and add 2 tablespoonfuls of it down the funnel of the processor, pulsing as you go.

Tip the drained pasta into your warmed serving bowl. Pour and scrape the sauce on top, tossing to coat (add a little more pasta-cooking water if you need it) and strew the basil leaves on top.

(Editing by Patricia Reaney and Philip Barbara)

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Czech court acquits US heavy metal singer over fan death

PRAGUE (Reuters) - A Czech court acquitted the frontman of U.S. heavy metal band Lamb of God of manslaughter charges on Tuesday in the death of a fan who was pushed off the stage at a concert in Prague.

The prosecution accused Randy Blythe, 42, of shoving 19-year-old fan Daniel Nosek off the stage at the 2010 concert, causing him to hit his head when he crashed onto the floor. Nosek died in hospital a few weeks later from his head injury.

Presiding judge Tomas Kubec ruled that Blythe's actions did not constitute the crime of causing an injury leading to death.

"We did not find criminal responsibility in the actions of the defendant. We found moral responsibility. There has been the death of a young man who had not been guilty of anything."

Kubec said the concert promoters were ultimately to blame for failing to prevent fans from clambering onto the stage. "We reached the conclusion that there was a serious fault on the side of the promoter and organizer of the concert."

Prosecutors immediately appealed against the acquittal, meaning that the case will be reviewed by the Czech High Court.

Blythe, who has cropped his long dark hair but kept his soul patch, wore a dark suit with white shirt and a striped tie at the trial, attended by Czech and international media.

"I have been found not guilty and acquitted of all charges against me. I am a free man," Blythe said in a post on his Instagram.com profile. "Please remember the family of Daniel Nosek in your thoughts and prayers in this difficult time. I only wish for them peace. Thank you for your support."

Blythe nodded his head when the judge said some form of compensation for the victim's family could be suitable.

"The acquittal does not prevent the defendant, if he feels some moral responsibility, to enter negotiations with the family of the victim and act accordingly," the judge said.

The singer admitted to shoving the fan off the stage after several other fans climbed up onto it during the 2010 Prague show, but said he believed Nosek was unharmed.

He said he did not learn of Nosek's death or the prosecution over the incident until police arrested him at Prague airport when the band returned for another gig in June last year.

Blythe made no immediate comment to reporters after the ruling and left with his attorney.

He was released on bail after his arrest and travelled back to the United States, but returned for his trial. Blythe would have faced up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

(Additional reporting and writing by Jan Lopatka; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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