sentenced

The decision follows Castillo’s failed 2022 bid to dissolve Congress and avoid a third impeachment attempt.

A court in Peru has sentenced former President Pedro Castillo to 11 years, five months and 15 days in prison for seeking to dissolve Congress.

The decision on Thursday came nearly three years after Castillo sought to disband the legislature on December 7, 2022, as he faced a third set of impeachment hearings.

The first two attempts to impeach Castillo had been unsuccessful. But after he appeared on television to impose a state of emergency and suspend the legislature for eroding the rule of law, Congress swiftly voted for his removal. He was arrested the same day.

Castillo, a former teacher and union leader, was charged with rebellion and conspiracy against the state for his alleged power grab, which some have described as a “self-coup”.

A left-leaning, socially conservative politician from Peru’s rural north, Castillo had faced up to 34 years in prison at his sentencing.

Prosecutors in the case argued that Castillo aimed to undermine Peru’s Constitution with his actions. But at trial last week, Castillo denied the charges against him. Addressing his televised 2022 speech, he said he merely read out “a document without consequence”.

Castillo is part of a series of presidents in recent decades to face investigations and criminal charges in Peru. The country has had eight presidents within the last 10 years alone.

After his surprise victory in the 2021 presidential election, Castillo, now 56, was dubbed the country’s first “president of the poor“, given his working-class roots in the northern city of Puna. He had never previously held elected office.

His brief tenure, which lasted only around 16 months, was defined by frequent shake-ups among his top ministers and clashes with the opposition-led Congress.

Castillo’s arrest in 2022 sparked pushback from Indigenous residents and his rural base, members of which blocked roads, particularly in Peru’s south.

The unrest fuelled widespread, years-long protests across the country. His successor, former Vice President Dina Boluarte, oversaw a brutal crackdown of those demonstrations that left at least 50 people dead.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has accused the government of using “disproportionate, indiscriminate and lethal use of force” in its response to the protests.

Boluarte, the country’s first female president, was subsequently impeached in October, amid concerns about rising crime and investigations into her behaviour. She has been replaced by the right-wing politician Jose Jeri, who previously was the head of Peru’s Congress.

Thursday’s sentencing caps a nine-month trial punctuated by a diplomatic rift.

During the court proceedings, the Mexican embassy granted asylum to Castillo’s former prime minister, Betssy Chavel, who was also facing charges related to the former president’s effort to consolidate power.

Peru’s government subsequently labelled Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, a vocal supporter of Castillo, “persona non grata”.

Castillo has been denied the possibility of serving his sentence under house arrest. Instead, he is slated to join several other former presidents at Barbadillo Prison in the capital Lima. The prison, situated at a police academy, was set up to hold convicted leaders who might face safety hazards in other detention facilities.

Detainees at Barbadillo include Ollanta Humala, who served as president from 2011 to 2016 and was sentenced to 15 years in prison this year for money laundering.

Alejandro Toledo, who served from 2001 to 2006, was sentenced last year to 20 years in prison for taking bribes. He too is at the prison.

And Martin Vizcarra, who was sentenced on Wednesday to 14 years in prison for bribery, was transferred there this week.

Justice Department prosecutors accused Grammy-winning rapper Pras Michel of betraying his country for money.

A United States district judge has sentenced Prakazrel “Pras” Michel, a member of 1990s hip-hop group the Fugees, to 14 years in prison for illegally funnelling millions of dollars in foreign contributions to former US President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.

Michel declined to address the court before Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sentenced him on Thursday. The trial in Washington, DC, included testimony from former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

This week’s sentencing came after a federal jury convicted Michel on 10 counts, including conspiracy and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, in April 2023.

Michel obtained more than $120m from fugitive Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho – also known as Jho Low – and steered some of that money through straw donors to Obama’s campaign.

Low is wanted for his leading role in the 1MDB scandal, in which billions of dollars were pilfered from Malaysia’s state investment fund in one of the largest financial frauds in history.

Several senior financial figures and members of Malaysia’s government have been convicted for their role in the scandal, including disgraced former Prime Minister Najib Razak, who was handed a 12-year prison sentence in 2022, which was later halved.

Court documents, filed by Justice Department prosecutors on Thursday, said the 52-year-old Grammy-winning rapper “lied unapologetically and unrelentingly to carry out his schemes” as he syphoned illegal payments from Low to the Obama campaign.

It is illegal in the US for foreigners to donate to election campaigns, as well as to pay someone else to make a campaign contribution.

“Prakazrel Michel betrayed his country for money. He funnelled millions of dollars in prohibited foreign contributions into a United States presidential election and attempted to manipulate a sitting president to serve a foreign criminal and a foreign power,” prosecutors said.

Prosecutors also said Michel had attempted to end a Justice Department investigation into Low and the 1MDB scandal, as well as “tampered with witnesses and then perjured himself at trial”.

Judge Kollar-Kotelly was advised by prosecutors that federal sentencing guidelines recommended a life sentence for such crimes, urging her to take into account the “breadth and depth of his crimes, his indifference to the risks to his country, and the magnitude of his greed”.

Michel’s lawyers downplayed the extent of his crimes, saying Low’s motivation for donating money was not to “achieve some policy objective”.

“Instead, Low simply wanted to obtain a photograph with himself and then-President Obama,” Michel’s lawyers wrote.

Low – who remains in hiding and claims innocence – courted America’s rich and famous during a years-long spending spree allegedly financed by funds stolen from 1MDB.

Notably, he was one of the primary financiers of the 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street, starring DiCaprio.

Defence lawyer Peter Zeidenberg said Michel will appeal.

He labelled his client’s 14-year sentence “completely disproportionate to the offence” and “absurdly high” given such terms are typically reserved for deadly terrorists and drug cartel leaders.

Instead, Zeidenberg recommended a three-year prison sentence for Michel.

Michel, a Brooklyn native whose parents immigrated to the US from Haiti, was a founding member of the Fugees along with childhood friends Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean. The group won two Grammy Awards during their peak in the 1990s and sold tens of millions of albums.

Nov. 20 (UPI) — A Philippine judge on Thursday sentenced a former mayor convicted of human trafficking in connection with an illegal offshore gambling operation in her town, according to local reports.

Alice Guo, the disgraced 35-year-old former mayor of Bamban, Tarlac, located about 62 miles northeast of the capital Manila, was sentenced by the Pasig Regional Trial Court to life in prison, Rappler reported.

She was convicted along with seven co-defendants, while five others were acquitted. The case remains open.

“This eagerly awaited ruling is not only a legal victory but also a moral one,” the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission said in a statement.

“It delivers justice to victims, reaffirms the government’s united stance against organized crime and marks a defining moment in the country’s fight against large-scale trafficking and online scam syndicates.”

Guo was charged following a March 2024 raid on a Bamban casino operated by Chinese-owned Zun Yuan Technology Inc., rescuing nearly 800 people, more than half of them foreigners. Authorities alleged human trafficking was being perpetrated by the offshore gaming operator.

Prosecutors said the company that had leased the 7.9-hectare compound to Zun Yuan Technology was Baofu, which was incorporated by Guo. Rappler reported that her business partner in Baofu was Huang Zhiyan, a notorious Chinese gang leader wanted in China.

Guo said she had divested from Baofu before running for mayor, but it was proven in court that she did not do so. Guo was elected mayor of Bamban in 2022, but was removed from office after it was ruled that she was a Chinese citizen, born Guo Hua Ping.

She was arrested in September 2024 in Indonesia after fleeing the Philippines.

According to the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission, the court ordered the criminal forfeiture of the 7.9-hectare compound of the illegal offshore gambling operation that contains 36 buildings worth about $66 million.

The government continues to seek the civil forfeiture of additional assets linked to Guo, including 27 bank accounts holding $1.23 million as well as 18 vehicles and 14 properties, it said.

“The Alice Guo case is a story of a nation that refused to be deceived, of institutions that stood firm and of victims whose voices now echo through every courtroom decision,” PAOCC Executive Director Undersecretary Benjamin Acorda Jr. said in a statement.

“It is proof that no matter how elaborate the scheme, how powerful the mastermind or how long the deception, justice will find its way.”

Nov. 18 (UPI) — Two more defendants have been sentenced for their roles in a $16 million California hospice scam that billed Medicare for medical services that never were provided.

The U.S. District Court for Central California on Monday sentenced Juan Carlos Esparza, 33, of Valley Village, to 57 months in prison and ordered him to pay $1.83 million in restitution, according to the Justice Department.

The court on Monday also sentenced Susanna Harutyunyan, 39, of Winnetka, to 15 months in prison and to pay $2.82 million in restitution

Their sentences are in addition to that of Karpis Srapyan, 35, of Winnetka, who was sentenced to 57 months in prison and to pay $3.2 million in restitution in October.

Mihran Panosyan, 47, of Winnetka, in September also was sentenced to 57 months and was ordered to pay $4.7 million in restitution.

The court in May also sentenced Petro Fichidzhyan, 44, of Granada Hills, to 12 years in prison and ordered him to pay $17.13 million in restitution.

Their scheme ran from July 2019 until January 2023 as the five defendants “operated four sham hospices” that billed Medicare for unnecessary medical procedures that never were provided, according to the DOJ.

Esparza owned the House of Angels Hospice and, with the help of Fichidzhyan and Srapyan, “concealed the scheme by using foreign nationals’ names and personally identifiable information to act as straw owners for the hospices and to open bank accounts, submit information to Medicare and to sign property leases,” the DOJ said Tuesday in a news release.

The defendants also obtained cell phones in the names of foreign nationals and controlled them to further the scheme that netted $16 in payments from Medicare.

The DOJ said they conspired with Harutyunyan, Panosyan and others to launder the proceeds by maintaining fraudulent identification documents, bank documents, checkbooks, credit cards, debit cards and other records associated with the sham hospices in the names of the “purported foreign workers.”

After defrauding Medicare, the defendants transferred the money among different accounts and assets, including bank accounts in the names of shell companies, to launder the proceeds and conceal the scheme, according to the DOJ.

Esparza in July pleaded guilty to healthcare fraud and transactional money laundering.

That same month, Harutyunyan also pleaded guilty to transactional money laundering, and Srapyan pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and transactional money laundering.

Panosyan in June pleaded guilty to concealment money laundering, and Fichidzhyan in February pleaded guilty to healthcare fraud, aggravated identity theft and concealment money laundering.

The federal court in May also ordered forfeiture of two homes the defendants bought with the fraudulent proceeds, and the federal government seized $2.92 million from associated bank accounts.