Venezuelan admits cover-up plot over $800,000

[maddezmom]

Source: NYTimes

U.S. says he tried to hide destination of a suitcase of cash for Argentina vote

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL — A Venezuelan lawyer pleaded guilty in Miami on Friday to his role in a plot to cover up the destination of a suitcase stuffed with $800,000 in cash that U.S. prosecutors say was intended as a campaign contribution from the Venezuelan government to Argentina's president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

The lawyer, Moises Maionica, 36, was one of five foreigners charged in December with conspiring to silence Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, a Venezuelan-American businessman caught carrying the suitcase by customs officials in Buenos Aries.

In a case bitterly disputed by the governments of Argentina and Venezuela, a four-month investigation led American prosecutors to charge four Venezuelans and one Uruguayan with conspiracy and with acting as unregistered foreign agents of the Venezuelan government in what they said was a cover-up scheme.

Maionica admitted in federal district court on Friday to having met with Antonini and people suspected of being Venezuelan agents, and to having arranged calls between Antonini and a senior official in Venezuela's intelligence agency, which the FBI said it recorded.



Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/5487251.html

[bahrbearian]

1. Chavez's government has gone as far as to say ,

Chavez's government has gone as far as to say the entire operation was a CIA plot to discredit him.

Ruben Oliva, Maionica's lawyer, said in court that his client had been in the United States preparing to take a cruise when he received a call from a high-ranking Venezuelan official asking him to help Antonini, according to The Associated Press.

Oliva said Maionica did not know he needed to register as an agent for a foreign government but that ignorance of the law was not a defense. Maionica pleaded guilty to both charges and answered questions from Judge Joan Lenard in Spanish, The AP reported.

Oliva declined to comment on the case outside of court. Maionica is expected to be sentenced on Aug. 4.


Can you believe Chavez's would go so far as to say it was a CIA plot,,I mean the CIA really?
Weren't they established to protect Foreign Elections and make sure the votes get counted.

[sam sarrha]

2. where would the CIA get that kind of money... >>Link>>

maybe they got it here...
http://www.madcowprod.com/10092007.html

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/10/09/crashed-drug-plane-o.html

on the way back from dropping of someone here for an all expenses paid vacation from Guantanamo care of our wet brain alcoholic torture monkey pResident ---if you scroll down there are some graphic photos
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3943.htm

[Thothmes]

8. Ask this question on April the 15th

[Peace Patriot]

3. Waterboarding. Or kneecapping. Or...nice apartment in Miami, with a Porsche

in the driveway.

Really, the charge is so absurd that, even if he was guilty, he should have pleaded not guilty. This Gonzo US Attorney in Miami has to prove that he was "an agent of a foreign government," that he feloniously failed to register as such with the U.S. Attorney General, and that his taped conversations with private parties (and evidently with a Bushite/CIA operative) were the actions of a feloniously unregistered "agent of a foreign government." The guy who entrapped this patsy (the rich Miamian with TWO Porsches in his driveway (I'm not kidding--it's true) who was caught with the $800,000 in U.S. currency, by Argentinian authorities, trying to enter Argentina, IS the U.S. Attorney's "informer," for godssakes. (Talk about being a foreign agent!)

So, why would he plead guilty to such a fragile, difficult to prove, charge? It's not a crime to advocate for Venezuela on U.S. soil (not yet anyway--or maybe it already is in Miama!) It's not a crime to take money to a political cause in Argentina. (They have no law barring it, as I understand it. And the Bushites are doing it themselves--multi-millions of our tax dollars, through USAID-NED and other budgets, to the fascist 'brownshirts' in Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia and other countries.) And HE didn't take the money into Argentina. The "informer" did! So, where's his "crime"? It evaporates in the mist, in this political prosecution.

Bad lawyer.
Threats.
Bribes.
All of the above?

Killers and major thieves are going free, as we speak--while this U.S. Attorney wastes taxpayer's money trying to embarrass the Venezuelan and Argentine LEFTIST governments. In fact, we have some killers and major thieves in the White House, that he could be going after. 1.2 million dead in Iraq. Thousands tortured. Millions of refugees. Billions of our tax dollars gone missing.

This case--and this plea--sucks, big time.

[bahrbearian]

4. Thats why he probably plead guilty

they threaten him with the Patriot Act,,,off to Gitmo .. Then we have a Venezuelan Spy,, the US District Attorney looks good , Gonzo looks good,,, just think of the crimes they could make him confess too. Isn't that girl in Aruba still missing?

[Mudoria]

5. Looks like Senor Chavez

just got his fingers burned. Not that surprising really.

[Peace Patriot]

7. No, dear, this patsy who pled guilty got his testicles burned. nt

[struggle4progress]

6. Venezuelan Minister Says Suitcase Scandal Figure Wasn't Agent

By Steven Bodzin

Jan. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuela's foreign minister said Moises Maionica, a lawyer who yesterday pleaded guilty to being an unregistered foreign agent in the U.S., wasn't working on behalf of the Venezuelan government.

The U.S. ``justice system that works in a terrorist manner has made this person tell a boldfaced lie,'' Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said in remarks on the Web site of Venezuela's radio network Union Radio. ``You know that this man said the exact opposite 15 days ago. Who knows what thing, what deception would make him declare this?'' ...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aKQOXU74ECy0&refer=latin_america