By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez will spend decades in prison when a U.S. judge sentences him later on Wednesday for his conviction on drug and firearms offenses.
Hernandez, 55, faces a mandatory minimum 40-year prison sentence after a Manhattan jury found he accepted millions of dollars in bribes to protect cocaine shipments into the U.S. from human traffickers he once publicly proclaimed he would fight.
Federal prosecutors urged U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel to sentence Hernandez to life in prison, sending a message to other traffickers and their accomplices in the government.
“Without corrupt politicians like the defendant, the type of large-scale, international drug trafficking at issue in this case, and the rampant drug-related violence that follows, would be difficult, if not impossible,” prosecutors wrote Monday.
Hernandez led Honduras, a US ally in Central America, from 2014 to 2022.
His lawyer Renato Stabile urged Castel not to impose more than 40 years, which was effectively called a life sentence, and said Hernandez would continue to challenge his conviction.
“Mr. Hernandez has done more to combat drug trafficking in Honduras than any Honduran president before or after him,” Stabile wrote.
The sentencing hearing will begin at 11 a.m. EDT (3 p.m. GMT) in Manhattan federal court.
Hernandez has been jailed in Brooklyn since his extradition from Tegucigalpa in April 2022.
During a two-week trial, prosecutors said Hernandez used drug money to bribe officials and manipulate voting results during the 2013 and 2017 presidential elections in Honduras. Several convicted traffickers testified that they bribed Hernandez.
Hernandez testified in his own defense and denied taking bribes from drug cartels.
His lawyers, meanwhile, accused the convicted traffickers of seeking revenge for Hernandez’s anti-drug policies.
In May, Castel denied Hernandez’s bid for a new trial.
Hernandez had argued that a U.S. drug enforcement agent had falsely testified that cocaine trafficking had increased, not decreased, during his presidency.
But the judge called that issue “irrelevant” to whether Hernandez conspired with human traffickers.
Hernandez’s younger brother, Tony Hernandez, was sentenced to life in prison in March 2021 following his drug abuse conviction.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York)
