NEW YORK: The brother of Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernndez was sentenced to life in jail Tuesday after he was convicted on drug fees.
Juan Antonio Tony Hernndez, a former Honduran congressman, was sentenced in Manhattan federal courtroom by U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel, who additionally ordered him to forfeit $138 million.
Hernndez was convicted in October 2019 of fees that carried a compulsory minimal sentence of 40 years in jail.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Laroche instructed the decide that Hernndez for 15 years fueled a flood of cocaine shipments into the United States by paying hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to high Honduran officers like his brother.
Hernndez’s lawyer, Peter Brill, had argued for leniency, saying the U.S. ought to focus anti-drug trafficking efforts on the voracious urge for food of its residents for medicine.
In courtroom papers, prosecutors had argued for a life sentence, citing Tony Hernndezs felony historical past.
His brother served because the chief of Honduras congress earlier than assuming the presidency in January 2014.
The defendant was a Honduran congressman who, alongside along with his brother Juan Orlando Hernndez, performed a management position in a violent, state sponsored drug trafficking conspiracy, prosecutors wrote in courtroom papers.
Over a fifteen-year interval, the defendant corrupted the democratic establishments of Honduras to counterpoint himself by transporting at the very least 185,000 kilograms of cocaine a staggering quantity of poison that he helped import into the United States, prosecutors wrote. They say he additionally offered weapons to drug traffickers, a few of which got here from Honduras navy, and managed drug laboratories in Colombia and Honduras.
Between 2004 and 2019, the defendant secured and distributed hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in drug-derived bribes to Juan Orlando Hernndez, former Honduran President Porfirio Lobo Sosa and different politicians related to Hondurass National Party, prosecutors stated.
They allege that amongst these bribes was $1 million from infamous Mexican capo Joaqun El Chapo Guzmn to Juan Orlando Hernndez.
President Hernndez has repeatedly denied any ties to drug traffickers, as has Lobo, whose son is at present serving a 24-year drug trafficking sentence within the U.S.
In courtroom on Tuesday, Tony Hernndez seemed pale and downcast. When the defendant was given an opportunity to talk, he complained about his legal professionals, saying he hardly noticed them and so they barely responded to his emails.
I really feel I’ve been lied to, he stated via a translator.
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