Former ally Hugo Chavez sentenced to jail in Miami

The maximum sentence Marin faced was about five years in prison.

Defendants often make deals with the prosecution with the aim of obtaining a lighter sentence in exchange for the government’s help with key information. Through these agreements, they usually plead guilty, as did Marín when he accepted charges of wrongful association to commit money laundering.

Marin, 44, was mayor of the Venezuelan port city of Guanta for nearly a decade until his resignation in 2017. He fled his country in the midst of a major purge of the state-owned oil company PDVSA and the regime of Nicolás Maduro – who succeeded that of Chavez – ordered his arrest for corruption and prohibited him from holding public office.

Marín admitted to accepting bribes of approximately $ 3.8 million of an unidentified partner to exert influence over officers of PDVSA joint ventures with Chevron and European, Russian and Chinese companies. In June he pleaded guilty.

In the 30-minute hearing, Judge Scola told Marín he had to surrender himself to the prison authorities on April 27, 2023 at noon. The Venezuelan has two weeks to appeal the sentence if he so wishes.

Requesting a light sentence in an 11-page document filed days before the judge’s decision, Marin’s attorney, Michael Nadler, asked the magistrate to consider several factors, including his client’s “limited and unusual” role in the conspiracy. whereas it had no control or power to grant or guarantee contracts with PDVSA.

He indicated that as the mayor of a city where PDVSA had major operations, Marín had connections and used them to introduce an unidentified contractor and state oil company officials. He was present at meetings where business details were negotiated, the attorney said, and took a percentage of the money provided to the PDVSA official who approved the contract but did not execute or approve that deal.

The defense also said that Marín devoted “his money, his time and his connections” to US-led efforts to get the Maduro regime to sit down to negotiate with the opposition to hold democratic elections.