This Office of the Prosecutor of the Southern District of New York The petition was sent to Judge Kevin Castel in connection with a request for a retrial by the legal defense of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez.
In particular, prosecutor Damien Williams asked Judge Castel for this Monday, March 25, the deadline (April 12) for an answer to the petition presented by the lawyers of the former Honduran president.
“The (United States) government respectfully writes to request that its response to the defendant’s Rule 33 motion in the case of Juan Orlando Hernandez filed on March 22, 2024 be terminated. April 12, 2024”, points to Williams’s letter.
Application for rehearing
Ana Garcia, the wife of former President Hernandez, reported last Friday that lawyer Renato Stabile, through a letter, asked Judge Kevin Castel to repeat the trial against his client, based on Rule 33 of the Federal Regulations of Criminal Procedure.
The former president’s defense, during the JOH trial, presented two reasons for the request based on the testimony of an expert and analyst for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Jennifer Toul.
JOH’S COMPLETE ARGUMENTS OF DEFENSE
First: The US The government’s expert witness, DEA analyst Jennifer Towle, misled the jury by testifying that cocaine trafficking through Honduras increased during the presidency of Juan Orlando Hernandez, when in fact multiple United States reports and official documents indicated a marked decrease. Government itself.
Prosecutors, instead of correcting that testimony, emphasized it during their closing arguments. Available evidence suggests that Ms. Toul’s testimony that between 2014 and 2019, there was an “increase” in cocaine trafficking through Honduras.
Because the prosecutor’s office knew or should have known about this false testimony before the conclusion of the trial and did not correct it, a conviction must be reversed when there is “a reasonable possibility that the false testimony could have affected the jury’s verdict.” Willful submission of false testimony results in a “virtual automatic” reversal.
Second: The trial against Juan Orlando was improperly conducted in the Southern District of New York because, pursuant to Rule 18 USCS 3238, it should have been held in the Southern District of Florida, the district where he was first brought. Extradition from Honduras.
Plane carrying Juan Orlando Hernandez lands in Florida Ft. The first landing was in Lauderdale, where Juan Orlando was taken off the plane by DEA agents, who, after waiting, put him back on the plane, which took him to Westchester, N.Y. York.
Prosecutors, knowing this information, presented false information to the defense and argued that it had arrived in Westchester directly from Honduras (the plane used by the DEA did not have the flight range of New York).
Accordingly, venue in the Southern District of New York was improper and the indictment must be dismissed for that reason. See United States v. Holmes., 670 F. 3d 586 (4thcir. 2012).
JOH, convicted of drug trafficking
Juan Orlando Hernandez, who ruled Honduras for two presidential terms between 2014 and 2022, was found guilty on March 8 in a historic trial on three counts of conspiracy to traffic drugs and use weapons.
The former Honduran president will learn his prison sentence on June 26, 2024, a day after the former head of the national police, Juan Carlos “El Tigre” Bonilla, received his prison sentence for similar crimes.
