“Overwhelming evidence” against Martinelli Bros. – NY prosecutor

 Despite the fact that there is a plea agreement (not yet validated before a federal judge), the Brooklyn prosecutor’s office requested that Ricardo Alberto Martinelli Linares – who was extradited from Guatemala on Friday- remain in detention, considering that there is a risk of flight.

“The evidence in this case is overwhelming,” said prosecutor Alixandra Smith in a note to Judge Robert Levy, presented on December 10, shortly after Martinelli Linares’ attorney requested, in writing, that the accused be released. on bail. The defense backed his request with a bail proposal of $4.5 million and attached a copy of the plea agreement in which his client agrees to have participated in a scheme to launder up to $28 million in bribes from Odebrecht, for the benefit of ” a high official of the Panamanian Government ”, between August 2009 and September 2015, a period that includes the entire presidential term of Ricardo Martinelli  (2009-2014).

The identity of this “high official” has been kept secret and it is only known that he is a “close relative” of Martinelli Linares and the other accused of this plot, his brother Luis Enrique, who has already pleaded guilty and has been detained in Brooklyn since on November 15, without bail.

Prosecutor Smith, in her 11-page note to Judge Levy, points out that additional information about this “official of the Panamanian government” was already provided in a sealed document, presented on November 15. It also indicates that in the period that Odebrecht paid the bribes to the close relative of the two defendants, the construction company obtained multi-million-dollar public infrastructure contracts, “including a project that was a campaign promise from the Panamanian government official.”

The AFP agency quoted an official from the prosecution, who reported that on Saturday, November 11, Martinelli Linares will and , on December 14, he will have a hearing to validate the plea agreement, with Judge Raymond Dearie.

Prosecutor Smith’s arguments to oppose the bail of Ricardo Alberto are similar to those that she used against the possible release of Luis Enrique: the seriousness of the charges; proven risk of leakage; access to economic resources and private aircraft; political connections; dual Panamanian and Italian nationality, with the aggravation that Panama does not extradite its nationals; lack of roots in the United States, and that both escaped in June 2020, when they were already negotiating plea agreements with the Department of Justice and the FBI.

Political influence
In the note presented by the defendant’s lawyer, he maintains that Ricardo Alberto does not want to return to Panama, because he has open processes and it is convenient for him to remain in the United States, in order to obtain “protection from a double trial”. The prosecutor disagrees with this statement since the accused still has a strong political influence over the current government and the proof of this is that last year he had “convinced” the Minister of Health (it is not clear if he refers to Rosario Turner or the current one, Luis Francisco Sucre) to authorize the entry into the country of his brother Luis Enrique,  circumventing the sanitary restrictions that at that time only allowed the entry of humanitarian flights, due to the pandemic. Those same political connections are what helped him get “invalid” credentials that accredited them as members of Parlacen.

Regarding the flight from the United States, the documents describe that both escaped on a yacht that took them to the Bahamas, with Luis Enrique’s wife and daughters. On the island, they boarded a private plane bound for Panama, but the plane could not land given entry restrictions at that time. The plane finally arrived in in Costa Rica and from there it went, later, to El Salvador. In El Salvador, Luis Enrique’s family stayed in a hotel and he and his brother used Uber to get to the Guatemalan border. They used their Parlacen credentials to finally enter that country. On July 6, 2020, they were captured at La Aurora airport,  when they were about to board the family plane, bound for Panama.

Prosecutor Smith maintains that there is sufficient evidence against Ricardo Alberto: bank records of foreign and US banks; documents that prove that Luis Enrique used the bribe to buy a yacht and an apartment in Miami; Emails from Odebrecht executives who corroborate the scheme used to launder, and testimonial statements from former employees and agents of the construction company.

“The government is also in possession of voluminous information obtained from the database of the Structured Operations Division, ” which was then used by Odebrecht to pay bribes. These emails, bank statements, and statements indicate that shell companies and bank accounts were used to handle the illegal payments.

The prosecutor also replies that the extradition of Ricardo Alberto was not “voluntary”, as he alleges: for more than a year, he presented appeals to prevent his surrender to the United States, and acquiesced in the procedure, only after the Guatemalan courts endorsed the extradition of Luis Enrique.