Former Honduran president sentenced to 45 years for helping traffickers get tons of cocaine into U.S.

A defiant former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was sentenced in New York Wednesday to 45 years in prison for teaming up with some bribe-paying drug traffickers for over a decade to ensure over 400 tons of cocaine made it to the United States.

Judge P. Kevin Castel sentenced Hernández, 55, to 45 years in a U.S. prison and fined him $8 million, saying that the penalty should serve as a warning to “well educated, well dressed” individuals who gain power and think their status insulates them from justice when they do wrong.

A jury convicted him in March in Manhattan federal court after a two-week trial, which was closely followed in his home country.

At: https://apnews.com/article/honduras-president-juan-orlando-hernandez-corruption-3f98be974c58bb8a1b492108c4a7f297

Good boy: Disgraced former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was welcomed by then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in 2017.

The right-wing Honduran leader, long seen by most neo-cons as a "U.S. ally," had privately promised to "shove the drugs up the Gringos' noses."