45 Years To Be Sentenced For Drug And Firearm Offenses in Former Honduran President

Former Honduran President Juan Orlando received a 45-year prison term for narcotics and weapons offenses.

A U.S. judge sentenced former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez to 45 years in prison on Wednesday for his conviction on drug and firearm charges. The former leader, 55, is likely to be incarcerated for the remainder of his life unless his planned appeal is granted.

Hernandez was found guilty in March by a Manhattan jury of taking millions of dollars in bribes to shield cocaine shipments headed for the United States from traffickers he had openly declared he would stop. While Hernandez’s defense team argued for the federal law’s mandatory minimum of 40 years, the prosecution had requested a life sentence.

When he handed down the 45-year sentence, U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel emphasized the need to send a message to intelligent, affable offenders who might believe they are immune to prosecution. Hernandez testified in his own defense during the two-week trial, but Castel said that the jury saw through his “polished demeanor.”

In the federal court in Manhattan, Castel stated, “They saw him for what he was: a two-faced politician hungry for power.”

Hernandez served as president of Honduras, a Central American ally, from 2014 to 2022. He was charged by the prosecution with enabling the import of at least 400 tons of cocaine into the country, which fueled widespread addiction and violence. Additionally, they asserted that Hernandez manipulated ballots and bought off officials in the 2013 and 2017 Honduran presidential elections with drug money.

Prosecutor Jacob Gutwillig stated on Wednesday that “the defendant fed this never-ending cycle of drug trafficking and corruption that tore his country apart.”

Hernandez claimed that while his administration, he battled against cartels and denied accepting bribes. He insisted on his innocence and took issue with the testimony of other traffickers who had been found guilty and said they had paid him bribes. He said that their goals were retaliation and a reduction in their own sentences.

Before being sentenced, Hernandez told Castel through a Spanish interpreter, “Despite everything done to me, which is an outrage and a lynching, I am an optimist and I know that the truth will be known later.”

Hernandez said in Spanish, “soy inocente,” which translates to “I am innocent,” to reporters seated in the jury box after being given his sentence. As U.S. marshals took him out of the courthouse, he walked with a cane.

Hernandez’s extradition from Tegucigalpa in April 2022 resulted in his imprisonment at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center.