Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez will probably be ordered to spend a long time in jail when a U.S. decide sentences him afterward Wednesday for his conviction on drug and firearm offenses.
Hernandez, 55, faces a compulsory minimal 40-year jail sentence after a Manhattan jury discovered he accepted hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in bribes to guard U.S.-bound cocaine shipments belonging to traffickers he as soon as publicly proclaimed to fight.
Federal prosecutors have urged U.S. District Decide Kevin Castel to condemn Hernandez to life in jail, to ship a message to different traffickers and their accomplices in authorities.
“With out corrupt politicians just like the defendant, the type of large-scale, worldwide drug trafficking at subject on this case, and the rampant drug-related violence that follows, is troublesome if not not possible,” prosecutors wrote on Monday.
Hernandez led Honduras, a U.S. ally in Central America, from 2014 to 2022.
His lawyer Renato Stabile urged Castel to impose not more than 40 years, calling that successfully a life sentence, and stated Hernandez would proceed to struggle his conviction.
“Mr. Hernandez did extra to fight narcotrafficking in Honduras than any Honduran President earlier than or since,” Stabile wrote.
The sentencing listening to begins at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) in Manhattan federal courtroom.
Hernandez has been jailed in Brooklyn since his April 2022 extradition from Tegucigalpa.
Throughout a two-week trial, prosecutors stated Hernandez used drug cash to bribe officers and manipulate voting outcomes throughout Honduras’ 2013 and 2017 presidential elections. A number of convicted traffickers testified they bribed Hernandez.
Testifying in his personal protection, Hernandez denied taking bribes from drug cartels.
His legal professionals, in the meantime, accused the convicted traffickers of being out for revenge over Hernandez’s anti-drug insurance policies.
In Could, Castel denied Hernandez’s bid for a brand new trial.
Hernandez had argued {that a} U.S. drug enforcement agent mistakenly testified that cocaine trafficking had gone up, not down, throughout his presidency.
However the decide known as that subject “immaterial” as to whether Hernandez conspired with traffickers.
Hernandez’s youthful brother, Tony Hernandez, was sentenced to life in jail in March 2021 following his conviction on drug expenses.
