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Updated Wednesday, November 5, 2008 9:59 am TWN, By Curt Anderson, AP

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U.S. jury convicts Venezuelan in cash suitcase case

MIAMI -- A federal jury convicted a wealthy Venezuelan Monday of acting as an illegal foreign agent who came to the United States to cover up a Latin American political scandal involving a cash-stuffed suitcase smuggled into Argentina.

Jurors deliberated seven days — at one point indicating they were hopelessly deadlocked — before finding Franklin Duran, 41, guilty of foreign agent and conspiracy charges. He faces up to 15 years in prison.

Duran, dressed in a dark suit, stared straight ahead and showed no emotion when the verdict was announced. U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard set sentencing for Jan. 12.

Prosecutors said during the eight-week trial that Duran and other South American men came to Miami on orders of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to ensure the silence of a man who carried a suitcase filled with US$800,000 into Argentina in 2007. The U.S. said the money was a secret political donation to the campaign of Argentina’s president.

Duran attorney Ed Shohat contended his client was entrapped by the FBI and came to Miami only to help a friend and protect business interests. Shohat vowed Monday to appeal, calling the trial “a political circus” orchestrated by the U.S. to embarrass Chavez and his allies.

“Franklin Duran is a pawn of the U.S. government,” Shohat said. “We’re going to continue this fight.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Mulvihill rejected that description of the case, which has been the subject of relentless media coverage across Latin America.

“This was not a political trial. We don’t engage in those,” Mulvihill said.

Three other South American men previously pleaded guilty to their roles in the cover-up, including Duran’s business partner, Carlos Kauffmann, 36. Kauffmann testified against Duran, laying out in detail how the pair paid bribes and kickbacks to Venezuelan officials over the past decade to become wealthy from a series of corrupt business deals.

The case was an added strain on already sour relations between Venezuela and the Bush administration. Testimony indicated it was Chavez who ordered the cover-up, directing the chief of Venezuela’s intelligence service, Gen. Henry Rangel Silva, to handle it.

Chavez and Argentine President Cristina Fernandez, who was elected in October 2007, repeatedly denounced the case as politically motivated, but U.S. officials denied that.

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