Chávez’s nurse and her husband Adrian Velázquez are sentenced to 15 years in prison

A federal judge sentenced Claudia Díaz Guillén, a former nurse to the late Hugo Chávez, and her husband to 15 years in prison for laundering money from bribes paid to her by tycoon Raúl Gorrín when she was Venezuela’s treasurer.

Federal judge William Dimitrouleas revealed the sentence against Claudia Díaz during a hearing that took place on Wednesday in a court in downtown Miami, Florida, in the United States.

Díaz Guillen obtains her sentence four months after a jury ruled that she and her husband, Adrián Velásquez, were guilty of five of the six charges they have faced since 2020 for having received millions of dollars in bribes.

The prosecution requested a sentence of more than 23 years for Díaz and 19 years for her husband, reported the Associated Press. The former nurse’s defense wanted Díaz to receive a four-year sentence, similar to the sentence he commuted in Venezuela.

The sentence that the prosecution is seeking “is completely out of place with other sentences given in this type of case and that the conduct in question does not justify,” attorney Marissel Descalzo said in a recent written statement to The Associated Press.

For years the US government has accused dozens of Venezuelan businessmen and officials of having laundered money in this country. Most of them have sealed plea deals with the prosecution to avoid stiff sentences.

According to the indictment, Díaz and her husband received payments from companies controlled by Raúl Gorrín. The government assures that the role of the former nurse was key to the corrupt business plot in which Gorrín participated.

According to prosecutors, in exchange for favoring the businessman Díaz, she received payments of about 136 million dollars that her husband hid through the creation of shell companies and bank accounts abroad. Some of that money made its way to Miami.

The prosecution supported the case on the testimony of Alejandro Andrade, Díaz’s predecessor, in office. Andrade, who was released from prison in 2021, declared that he had made an agreement with Gorrín and that Díaz continued it.

Chavez’s former security chief testified against Diaz to get out of prison after serving less than half of his 10-year sentence and gave up more than $260 million in cash and assets, including a Palm Beach oceanfront mansion. , luxury vehicles and jumping horses.