Ex-Mexican governor gets nine years for embezzling

MEXICO CITY — A former governor of Mexico's Veracruz state who was suspected of embezzling possibly billions of dollars while in office — and who became a symbol of endemic political corruption in this country — has struck a deal with prosecutors that will land him nine years in prison, a fraction of what he might have faced if tried and convicted.

The sentence sparked outrage among many in Mexico who assailed the punishment as too lenient.

Ex-Veracruz Gov. Javier Duarte, a onetime rising star of Mexico's ruling party, was charged last year with setting up shell companies to divert public money and for having links to the criminal gangs that have made the Gulf state one of the most violent regions of the country. He faced up to 55 years in prison if convicted on all charges.

Instead, Duarte pleaded guilty Wednesday to two charges — money laundering and criminal association — and received a nine-year prison term.

Along with prison time, Duarte must pay about $3,000 and give up 41 properties that he allegedly purchased with illicit money.

Duarte, 45, became a national embodiment of the corruption that has ravaged Mexico and has severely tainted the image of the long-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, of which Duarte was a longtime member.

Duarte is one of at least half a dozen PRI former governors facing corruption charges or jailed for alleged wrongdoing. The mounting roll call of tarnished exgovernors has become a major embarrassment for a political party that ruled Mexico for much of the 20th century.

Veracruz, once a PRI bastion, has fallen largely under the political control of opposition political blocs.

With time already served and the potential for parole, Duarte could be free in four years, authorities said.

“It is a mockery,” Martha Tagle, a federal deputy for the Convergence for Democracy party, said on Twitter.

“With sentences like this, instead of inhibiting corruption, you are encouraging it,” tweeted political analyst Jose Antonio Crespo.

But the Mexican attorney general's office — which has faced setbacks in prosecutions of some other high-profile corruption cases — defended the outcome.

“With cases like these ... no one is ever satisfied,” Felipe de Jesus Munoz Vazquez, a top prosecutor with the attorney general's office, told reporters.

State prosecutors in Veracruz say they are also investigating corruption charges against Duarte's wife, Karime Macias, who is reportedly living in London with the couple's three children. Macias is seeking asylum in England as a victim of political persecution in Mexico, her lawyer has told Mexican news media.