| For
Honduras JOH Brother Tony US Wants Life
& $149M & CJA Fees Amid Fuente
Trial With Audio Cut
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon Song Filing
BBC
- Guardian
UK - Honduras
- ESPN
SDNY COURTHOUSE,
March 17 – Honduras President
Juan Orlando Hernandez took a
briefcase of cash and said he
would stuff drugs up the noses
of the gringos, a jury was
told on March 16, 2020. The
audio call-in line, at the
demand of the prosecutors was
cut off. But Inner City Press
live tweeted it, morning here
and then the afternoon, about
the video(s), here
and below.
Also on
March 16, the US Attorney's
Office filed its sentencing
memo for JOH's brother Tony
Hernandez, previously
convicted in a jury trial also
covered by Inner City Press.
The US is asking for life in
prison, and money: "The
defendant was a Honduran
congressman who, along with
his brother Juan Orlando
Hernandez, played a leadership
role in a violent, state
sponsored drug trafficking
conspiracy. Over a
fifteen-year period, the
defendant corrupted the
democratic institutions of
Honduras to enrich
himself by transporting at
least 185,000 kilograms of
cocaine—a staggering amount of
poison that he helped
import into the United States.
To accomplish this astonishing
level of drug
distribution, the
defendant commanded heavily
armed members of the Honduran
military and Honduran
National Police, including
Juan Carlos “Tigre” Bonilla
and Mauricio Hernandez Pineda;
he sold machineguns and
ammunition to drug
traffickers, some of which he
obtained from the
Honduran military; he
controlled cocaine
laboratories in Colombia and
Honduras; he bribed
politicians, including
past and current presidents of
Honduras; and he helped cause
at least two murders.
The defendant made at least
$138.5 million in blood money
through this egregious
course of conduct. He
also abused his political and
social position to facilitate
these drug-trafficking
activities in a country that
has been ravaged by
drug-related violence. Between
2004 and 2019, the
defendant secured and
distributed millions of
dollars in drug-derived bribes
to Juan Orlando
Hernandez, former Honduran
president Porfirio Lobo Sosa,
and other politicians
associated with
Honduras’s National Party.
Prior to 2012, as
a politically connected
Honduran citizen
operating in Honduras,
the defendant acted with
confidence that he could not
be held accountable for
his crimes in the United
States. The Honduran
constitution forbade it. When
Honduras amended its
constitution to permit
extraditions in 2012 based on
pressure from the United
States, the defendant
sought to exploit his
political connections to
achieve additional protection.
The next year, he
funneled a $1 million bribe
from Joaquín Guzmán Loera,
a/k/a “El Chapo,” (“Chapo”),
the leader of the
Sinaloa Cartel, to Juan
Orlando Hernandez. In 2014,
the defendant was caught on
tape meeting with one of
the most violent drug
traffickers in Honduras to
discuss providing
Honduran government
contracts to drug traffickers
in exchange for massive
bribes. The defendant
has done nothing to mitigate
his abhorrent criminal
conduct. Instead of
showing remorse for his
crimes, the defendant has
repeatedly lied, minimized,
and obstructed justice.
To give some examples, the
defendant (i) brazenly
traveled to the United States
in 2016 and lied to law
enforcement about his
drug-trafficking activities;
(ii) lied about his assets
during a January 2019
bail hearing; (iii) leaked
sensitive witness information
in violation of a
protective order in
October 2019; and (iv) lied
again about his assets during
an application for
appointed counsel in
February 2020. The
defendant’s conduct was, and
continues to be,
extraordinary.
The Probation
Office has recommended a
within-Guidelines sentence of
life imprisonment, and such a
sentence is appropriate
based on the § 3553(a)
factors. The defendant
trafficked cocaine on a
monumental scale,
corrupted his elected office,
contributed to the already
deteriorating conditions in
Honduras, and repeatedly
lied to the Court.
Accordingly, the Government
respectfully submits that the
Court should impose a
sentence of life imprisonment
and order the defendant to
forfeit $138.5 million,
return all funds disbursed
pursuant to the Criminal
Justice Act (“CJA”), and pay a
$10 million fine." Full memo
on Patreon here.
A question now:
Does the right to access to
Federal court proceedings
extend to listen-only
telephone lines, in the time
of COVID and beyond? Should
it?
The
question has been further
raised in the ongoing Honduras
narco-trafficking case US v.
Geovanny Fuentes, which Inner
City Press has been covering
in-person in the U.S. District
Court for the Southern
District of New York, where it
is "in-house press."
On
the morning of March 13, Inner
City Press filed a challenge
to the cut-off of audio access
to the US v. Fuentes trial,
citing the First Amendment,
COVID and real-world politics,
see here
and below.
Late on
the evening of March 14, the
US Attorney's Office filed a
three page letter into the
docket, specifically arguing
the the call-in line be
eliminated for two entire
Witnesses and everything they
say. US Attorney's Office's
letter, now uploaded on Inner
City Press' DocumentCloud, here.
Inner City
Press has immediately
responded in opposition, here,
stating among other things
that "the US Attorney's Office
seeks to specifically ban
public access to two of their
Witnesses, while saying that a
transcript would be available
at some unspecified date
afterwards. Given that the
Office has yet to unseal
improperly redacted portions
of their filings, there is
little reason to have
confidence in the speed of
transcription, or that such
transcripts would not be too
expensive for the public or
media.
Inner City Press
after its first filing waited
nine hours, including this song,
here, to report about
it. Full first letter on Inner
City Press' DocumentCloud, here.
Inner City
Press itself obeys all
existing rules and is grateful
for the additional access as
in-house media (particularly
since it is banned
from covering the UN, which
now Constitutional rights such
as the First Amendment exist).
But others
have rights too - including
journalists and regular
citizens of Honduras. If the
SDNY prosecutors are going to
exercises essentially
universal jurisdiction for any
wire transfer that passes
through lower Manhattan, how
ever briefly, they should not
oppose access to their trials
by those impacted, for better
and worse.
Judge Castel is a
good judge, in Inner City
Press' experience. When
petitioned he has ordered the
unsealing of certain court
documents, in a North Korea crypto-currency
conference case and the tech /
child sex sentencing
of Peter Bright former of
ArsTechnica, both of which
Inner City Press covered and requested.
And Judge Castel is certainly
in the mainstream in his March
12 psoition. But should it be
rethought? Is there a right?
Should there be? Watch this
site.
The case is US v. Diaz, 15-cr-379
(Castel).
***
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