(CNN Español) – Former president of the Salvadoran Football Association (FESFUT), Reynaldo Vásquez, was charged in federal court in New York on Friday for participating in organized crime.
During the charges in New York, the former Salvadoran official pleaded not guilty. During his arrest in December 2015, Vásquez also claimed in statements to the press to be innocent.
Vásquez is part of a group of former football leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean with ties to FIFA who were investigated in May 2015 for allegedly taking advantage of bribes from millionaires in exchange for the sale of rights of TV.
Several of the group of suspects have already been convicted, including Juan Ángel Napout and José María Marín, who were found guilty by a federal court in New York in December 2017.
Napout is the former president of Conmebol, the football confederation in South America. Marín was the head of the Brazilian Football Association between March 2012 and April 2015. He was also head of the 2014 World Cup Committee.
In December 2017, Manuel Burga, former president of Peruvian football, was released after the jury found him not guilty of the allegations of illegal association. Others have dismissed the charges.
In the case of Vásquez, the original charge in 2015 and the charge updated by the US law firm in March 2020 includes allegations of money laundering and electronic fraud. However, federal prosecutors explained to the court that he would only be prosecuted for his alleged participation in organized crime, as determined by El Salvador’s authorities approving the extradition.
Vásquez was taken on a commercial flight from El Salvador to New York this Friday, El Salvador’s attorney general has confirmed via his Twitter account.
During the virtual hearing, the judge in the case, Pamela Chen, summed up the charge filed in March 2020. That charge includes at least two transfers of funds. One for US $ 100,000 on November 4, 2011 and one for US $ 350,000 on October 10, 2012. According to the investigation, the money was part of the bribery scheme.
“So far I have understood everything he has explained,” Vásquez said in court during a videoconference hearing over the Covid-19 pandemic.
Vásquez will remain in custody by order of federal court in New York and at the request of prosecutors who believed there was a risk of flight given the seriousness of the charge. If found guilty, he could be sentenced to 20 years in prison, prosecutors explained during the virtual hearing.
Pending bail
The federal court in New York has scheduled a new hearing for April 7. During that time, attorney Gary Cutler, Vásquez’s attorney in the United States, will be able to analyze the accusation.
Cutler also explained to the court that Vasquez had a list of contacts and family members he should call to propose his release on bail while the trial is taking place.
Capture and sentencing in El Salvador
Vásquez was arrested in December 2015 on a beach ranch 66 kilometers from San Salvador by court order, after the Supreme Court recognized the United States’ extradition request.
Although magistrates endorsed Vásquez’s delivery to the U.S. legal system on August 29, 2017, the extradition was ineffective as he was still serving a sentence in the Central American country, according to a statement from the El Salvador Judiciary Center’s press service.
The former president of FESFUT was sentenced in March 2017 to eight years in prison for appropriation or withholding of labor quotas and to pay more than $ 400,000 for withholding about $ 193,000 in labor contributions from a family business of which he was the legal representative.
According to Mario Revelo, Vásquez’s lawyer in El Salvador, despite the fact that the sentence was eight years, it was reduced to five for good behavior. “The sentence was served in June 2020 and he has been isolated in prison ever since,” Revelo explained in statements to the press on Jan. 20, after a special hearing to finalize details for the extradition, which took place next Friday.