On May 24, the defendant pleaded not guilty before Judge William Matthewman.
Foto:
Spencer Platt / Getty Images
A federal judge in Florida refused to delay the trial of former Venezuelan national treasurer Claudia Patricia Díaz Guillén, known as “Chavez’s nurse,” in which she will answer for three crimes related to money laundering scheduled for June 27 of this year .
The lawyer Marissel Descalzo had requested this week to the court in Fort Lauderdale, north of Miami, to delay the trial for a few days due to personal matters and the “voluminous” file.
However, the judge in charge, William P. Dimitrouleas, denied that request and also moved up a pre-trial hearing from June 24 to 22 in which Díaz Guillén faces charges of “conspiracy to commit money laundering” and “money laundering.” capitals”.
The defense of the “nurse”, extradited from Spain to the United States on May 12, complained that only on June 4 did she begin to receive documents from the file.
Barefoot stressed that in addition to his personal affairs, his client is detained in West Palm Beach, a city more than 100 kilometers (61 miles) from his office in Miami, which makes his meetings more complicated.
On May 24, the defendant pleaded not guilty before Judge William Matthewman, in the West Palm Beach courts.
Judge Matthewman ruled on June 1 against the release on bail of Díaz Guillén after the Prosecutor’s Office warned of the danger of flight, according to court documents.
The trial will be presided over by Judge Dimitrouleas, of the federal court in Fort Lauderdale, a city about 46 kilometers (about 28 miles) north of Miami.
Díaz Guillén and her husband Adrián José Velásquez Figueroa were very close to Hugo Chávez, who was president of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013 from cancer.
They are known as Chávez’s “nurse” and “bodyguard” because she was part of his health team before being named national treasurer, a position she held from 2011 to 2013, and he was her head of security.
Apparently his relations with the current president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, are not so good, since in 2016 they settled in Spain and say they cannot return to the country.
Raúl Gorrín Belisario, owner and president of the Venezuelan channel Globovisión, is accused in the same case.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, Gorrín, a fugitive from US justice, paid millions of dollars in bribes to two former Venezuelan national treasurers, the “nurse” and Alejandro Andrade Cedeño, to secure the rights to carry out foreign currency exchange transactions at favorable rates.
Díaz Guillen has dual nationality, Spanish and Venezuelan, according to the documents in the case.
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