Four years prison for “Maletagate” defendant

Venezuelan businessman Franklin Duran was sentenced to four years in jail for his role in the “Maletagate” affair.

Duran had been found guilty in a U.S. federal court last November for conspiracy and acting as an “illegal foreign agent.” Prosecutors hoped for at least thirteen years in prison for Duran while his attorneys tried to get a reduced sentence and insisted that he was not a “spy” for the Venezuelan government. Ultimately, however, District Judge Joan Lenard admonished Duran for committing a "very serious offense against the United States'' and included a $175,000 fine in the sentence.

So what did the “Maletagate” case entail? As the Miami Herald’s website explained:

Durán, 41, the only defendant among five Latin American men indicted in 2007 to fight the charges at trial, was accused of traveling to South Florida to lead the coverup of the hemispheric political scandal.

The men were charged with working on behalf of Venezuela's spy agency to silence a colleague, Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, who had been caught with a suitcase stuffed with $800,000 on a plane flight to Argentina in August 2007. Prosecutors said the money was a gift from (Venezuelan president Hugo) Chávez to Argentina's leading presidential candidate, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. She won the election…

Three of his co-conspirators -- including a former business partner who testified against him -- pleaded guilty and received terms of 15 to 34 months.

Image- BBC News
Online Sources- BBC News, miamiherald.com, Bloomberg, The Latin Americanist,