Federal Judge Denies Bail For Ex-Peruvian President Living In Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS / AP) — A U.S. judge on Friday denied bail for former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo after prosecutors argued he was a flight risk and pointed out officials found a suitcase with $40,000 in cash during his arrest.
Magistrate Judge Thomas S. Hixson ordered Toledo held pending an extradition hearing scheduled for July 26.
U.S. Marshals detained Toledo at his Northern California home Tuesday on an extradition request.
The ex-president is wanted in his home country on accusations of taking $20 million in bribes from Brazilian construction company Odebrecht. Odebrecht has admitted to paying $800 million to officials throughout the region in exchange for lucrative public works contracts.
Toledo denies the charges.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Elise Lapunzina told Hixson in federal court in San Francisco that the cash and the fact that Toledo has ties to other counties made him a flight risk. She said his wife is from Israel, a country that does not have an extradition agreement with Peru.
Toledo's attorney, Joseph Russoniello, argued for the former president to be released on bail, saying he has deep ties to the San Francisco Bay Area.
Russoniello said the cash was his wife's money, and it was being used to pay for the couple's expenses.
Toledo was Peru's president from 2001 to 2006 and has lived in California in recent years.
He had been a visiting scholar at Stanford University as recently as 2017, though the school has said it was an unpaid position.
Earlier this year, Toledo was arrested in Menlo Park on a public drunkenness charge stemming from an incident at a restaurant on St. Patrick's Day. Toledo was released several hours later and the charge was later dropped.
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