Ricardo Jaime (Photo taken from Wikipedia)
Former Transport Secretary Ricardo Jaime admitted to receiving bribes whilst in office, in order to obtain a reduced sentence in a corruption case.
Prosecutor Guillermo Marijuan had originally asked for an 11-year sentence for Jaime, but the ex-transport secretary and the prosecutor reached an agreement yesterday whereby Jaime’s confession on two counts of bribery and his stated intent to return $2m would earn him a suspended sentence of one and a half years in an “abbreviated trial”. The judge in charge of the case, Julian Ercolini, has ten days to decide whether he accepts this agreement.
The bribes Jaime accepted were inconspicuous enough to pass unnoticed for some time until investigative journalists unveiled that Terminal de Buenos Aires, a private company to which he awarded a contract to operate the Retiro bus terminal, paid for the ex-Transport Secretary’s rent in two luxurious apartments in the city. Also, train operator Trenes de Buenos Aires (TBA), another private company he was in charge of supervising, paid for 12 of his holiday flights in private jets. TBA was the company operating the Sarmiento train line when the Once train crash took place, killing 51 people are injuring 702.
The $2m Jaime has offered to return would be given to La Alameda and another NGO.
Having reached a plea bargain just in time, the trial due to start today has been suspended. Nevertheless, there are still other charges pending against him for his role in the Once tragedy, and it is likely he will stand have to stand trial in the future.
He has already been convicted in the past for tampering with evidence when police officers searched his daughter’s house.
Ricardo Jaime was Transport Secretary between 2003 and 2009, under both Nestor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández’s administrations. If sentenced, he will be unable to serve in public office for two years.
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