Martinelli brothers request move to low-security jail

The defense attorneys of the brothers Luis Enrique and Ricardo Alberto Martinelli Linares requested through a letter to Judge Raymond Dearie to be transferred to a lower-security prison, after being sentenced on Friday, May 20, to 36 months in prison for money laundering of bribes paid by the Odebrecht company.

The brothers are currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, and are asking to be transferred to a low-security facility in Allenwood, Pennsylvania.

According to the lawyers, the prison in which the Martinelli Linares are held has poor conditions and they spend around 22 hours locked up.

Confiscation of assets
It was also known this Thursday, May 26, that Judge Dearie ordered the confiscation of the assets of the brothers.

The United States Department of Justice requested to confiscate $18.8 million and all the resources linked to two bank accounts in their names in Switzerland.

In addition to the $18.8 million, the brothers will also lose the immigration bond they had posted for just over a million dollars, another $697,000 that was withheld from the account of a Martinelli Linares attorney, as well as $1.4 million from a trust fund. collateral created after the sale of a property in Miami linked to them. Another $679,000 deposited in banks is added to the list.

During the reading of the sentence, both brothers pointed to their father, former president Ricardo Martinelli, as the person who ordered them to receive the bribes.

In addition to the 36-month sentence, the Martinelli Linares must pay a fine of $250,000 and spend two years on supervised release.

Judge Dearie announced the sentence, much less than the 9 to 11 years requested by the prosecution, which accused them of receiving $28 million in bribes from the Brazilian multinational, of which $19 million had passed through US accounts.