A Honduran man was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years for drug trafficking in a case involving the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, whom US prosecutors accused on Tuesday of being a “partner” of the drug trafficker and receiving his bribes.
During Geovanny Fuentes Ramírez’s sentencing hearing in a New York court, prosecutors said Hernández received boxes full of cash on several occasions and even in 2019, when he was president.
“Hernández protected the defendant from (police) investigations and also, of course, from extradition,” prosecutor Jacob Gutwillig said before Judge Kevin Castel imposed his sentence.
The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York made the same accusations against Hernandez last year during the trial of Fuentes Ramirez, who was found guilty on drug trafficking charges by a jury. Prosecutors then accused him of having produced massive amounts of cocaine in a laboratory in Honduras and alleged that he committed murders and bribed high-ranking officials to run his business. Among the high officials was Hernández, they assured.
The United States government reported the day before that last year it added Hernández to a list of officials suspected of corruption.
Hernández, who became president in 2014, finished his last term on January 27 after the swearing-in of the new president Xiomara Castro. He was immediately sworn in as the representative of Honduras before the Central American Parliament.
The former president has always denied the accusations against him made by the prosecutors of the southern district of New York.
Gutwillig said Tuesday that Fuentes Ramírez, 52, grew his drug business thanks to connections like Hernández’s. He stated that the two planned to “smuggle drugs right under the noses of the gringos,” citing something Hernández allegedly said in 2013 when he was a candidate for the presidency of Honduras.
At the time, Hernández received bribes from Fuentes Ramírez, Gutwillig said. The prosecutor also said Tuesday that Fuentes Ramírez traveled to the presidential house in 2019 to deliver another bribe.
The first accusations against Hernández emerged in 2019, although prosecutors at the time did not mention his name in court documents, instead describing him as a high-ranking official or presidential candidate. The prosecution began to clearly name one of his brothers, Tony Hernández, during a trial that same year. The money in bribes that the former president received, according to prosecutors, was used to finance electoral campaigns and buy votes from National Party politicians to help Hernández and others.
The prosecutor’s office for the southern district of New York assures that the former president came to the presidency driven by profits from drug trafficking. In Tony Hernández’s trial, the prosecution assured that Hernández received a payment of one million dollars from the Mexican drug trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. The alleged payment was made in 2013 through Tony Hernandez, they said.
In March 2021, a judge sentenced Tony Hernández to life in prison for drug trafficking. During his sentencing, prosecutor Matthew Laroche characterized the crime as “state-funded drug trafficking.”
Hernández argued that the accusations are “lies” by drug traffickers and murderers who want to reduce their sentences and therefore testify in trials made-up stories to satisfy prosecutors.
“What comes out in New York is offensive,” said the president, who has always cited the progress of Honduras in reducing violence and the amount of drugs that pass through the country as proof of his firm hand against crime.
For years there was speculation that prosecutors would file charges against Hernandez once he left office. Being a member of the Central American Parliament implies a certain immunity for Hernández, however, it can be removed if requested by the country of the representative.
During Fuentes Ramírez’s trial last year, Devis Leonel Rivera Maradiaga, a former leader of the Los Cachiros cartel, testified that his drug cartel paid a $250,000 bribe in 2012 to Hernández when he was president of Congress. The payment was allegedly made to Hilda Hernandez, a sister of the president who died in a helicopter crash in 2017.
On the other hand, a former accountant testified in the same trial that Fuentes Ramírez paid Hernández two bribes in 2013 when he was running for president. The payments were supposedly in exchange for protection from possible arrest by the authorities.
On Tuesday, Fuentes Ramírez, dressed in a tan prison uniform, said he is innocent and accused prosecutors of lying during the trial.
“It seems unfair to me that false arguments have been presented under oath,” said Fuentes Ramírez, who wept after saying that he never participated in drug trafficking and that he misses his family.
In addition to the life sentence, Judge Castel ordered Fuentes Ramírez to pay $151 million.
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