Peruvian ex-president Alejandro Toledo sentenced to 20.5 years in prison

LIMA, Peru – Peru’s former President Alejandro Toledo was sentenced Monday 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 committed millions of dollars in paid bribes to government officials and others.

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

Judge Inés Rojas said Toledo’s victims were Peruvians who “trusted” him as their president. Rojas explained that in that role, Toledo was “responsible for managing public finances” and responsible for “protecting and ensuring the appropriate” use of resources. Instead, she said, “he deceived the state.”

She added that Toledo “had a duty to act with absolute neutrality, to protect and preserve the assets of the state and to avoid their abuse or exploitation,” but he failed to do so.

Odebrecht, who built some of Latin America’s most crucial infrastructure projects, admitted to U.S. authorities in 2016 that he used generous bribes to purchase government contracts across the region. The U.S. Department of Justice investigation led to investigations 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 that Toledo received $35 million from Odebrecht in exchange for the contract to build 650 kilometers (403 miles) of highway connecting Brazil with southern Peru. That portion of the highway was initially estimated at $507 million, but Peru ultimately paid $1.25 billion.

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

Toledo has denied the allegations against him. His lawyer, Roberto Siu, told reporters after the hearing that they will appeal the verdict.

The former president frequently grinned and sometimes laughed Monday, especially as the judge cited multimillion-dollar amounts at the heart of the case, and also as she struggled to read transcripts and other evidence in the case. During the hearing he also exercised his right to speak to his lawyer.

By contrast, last week, with a broken voice and his hands together, as if praying, he asked the court 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 lived 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 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and his deteriorating mental health.

He was extradited to Peru in 2022 after an appeals court rejected a challenge to his extradition and he surrendered to authorities. He has been in preventive detention ever since.

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

Prosecutor José Domingo Pérez described the verdict after the hearing as “historic” and said it shows Peruvians that “crimes and corruption are punished.”

Odebrecht was renamed Novonor in 2020.

—Garcia Cano reported from Mexico City.