Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was sentenced Wednesday in New York for his conviction on charges that he enabled drug traffickers to use his military and national police force to help get tons of cocaine into the United States.
Judge P. Kevin Castel sentenced Hernández to 45 years in a US prison and fined him USD 8 million. A jury convicted him in March in Manhattan federal court after a two-week trial, which was closely followed in his home country.
“I am innocent,” Hernández said at his sentencing. “I was wrongly and unjustly accused.”
Castel called Hernández a “two-faced politician hungry for power” who protected a select group of traffickers.
Hernández was in a full green prison uniform as he stood in court with his lawyers. Two US marshals stood behind him.
He had faced a mandatory minimum of 40 years in prison and up to life in prison after he was convicted of conspiring to import cocaine into the US and two weapons counts. Prosecutors had sought a sentence of life in prison, plus 30 years.