Peru's ex-president Toledo gets more than 20 years in prison in case linked to corruption scandal

Peruvian former president Alejandro Toledo attends a court session in his corruption case in Lima, Peru, Oct. 21, 2024. (Guadalupe Pardo/AP Photo)

LIMA, Peru — Peru's former President Alejandro Toledo on Monday was sentenced to 20 years and six months in prison in a case involving Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, which became synonymous with corruption across Latin America, where it paid millions of dollars in bribes to government officials and others.

Authorities accused Toledo of accepting US$35 million in bribes from Odebrecht in exchange for allowing the construction of a highway in the South American country. The National Superior Court of Specialized Criminal Justice in the capital, Lima, imposed the sentence after years of legal wrangling, including a dispute over whether Toledo, who governed Peru from 2001 to 2006, could be extradited from the United States.

Judge Ines Rojas said Toledo's victims were Peruvians who "trusted" him as their president. Rojas explained that in that role, Toledo was "in charge of managing public finances" and responsible for "protecting and ensuring the correct" use of resources. Instead, she said, he "defrauded the state."

She added that Toledo "had the duty to act with absolute neutrality, protect and preserve the assets of the state, avoiding their abuse or exploitation," but he did not do so.

Odebrecht, which built some of Latin America's most crucial infrastructure projects, admitted to U.S. authorities in 2016 to having bought government contracts throughout the region with generous bribes. The investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice spun probes in several countries, including Mexico, Guatemala and Ecuador.

In Peru, authorities accused Toledo and three other former presidents of receiving payments from the construction giant. They alleged Toledo received US$35 million from Odebrecht in exchange for the contract to build 650 kilometres (403 miles) of a highway linking Brazil with southern Peru. That portion of the highway was initially estimated to cost US$507 million, but Peru ended up paying US$1.25 billion.

Rojas at one point read parts of the testimony from Jorge Barata, a former Odebrecht executive in Peru, who told prosecutors that the former president called him up to three times after leaving office to demand that he be paid. Toledo lowered his gaze and looked at his hands as Rojas read the expletive-laden remarks that Barata recounted to prosecutors.

Toledo has denied the accusations against him. His attorney, Roberto Siu, told reporters after the hearing that they will appeal the sentence.

The former president on Monday frequently smirked, and at times laughed, particularly when the judge mentioned multimillion-dollar sums central to the case as well as when she struggled to read transcripts and other evidence in the case. Throughout the hearing, he also leaned to his right to speak with his attorney.

In contrast, last week, he asked the court with a broken voice and his hands together, as if he were praying, to let him return home citing his age, cancer and heart problems.

Toledo, 78, was first arrested in 2019 at his home in California, where he had been living since 2016, when he returned to Stanford University, his alma mater, as a visiting scholar to study education in Latin America. He was initially held in solitary confinement at a county jail east of San Francisco but was released to house arrest in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and his deteriorating mental health.

He was extradited to Peru in 2022 after a court of appeals denied a challenge to his extradition and he surrendered to authorities. He has since remained under preventive detention.

Rojas said Toledo will get credit for time served starting in April 2023. He will serve the remainder of his sentence at a prison on the outskirts of Lima that was built specifically to house former Peruvian presidents.

Prosecutor Jose Domingo Perez after the hearing described the sentence as "historic" and said it shows Peruvians that "crimes and corruption are punished."

Odebrecht rebranded as Novonor in 2020.

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Garcia Cano reported from Mexico City.