Ex-Peruvian President Held In Santa Rita Jail Again Seeks Release On Bail
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo was in court Thursday to again ask a Bay Area federal judge to release him on bail while he fights extradition to his native country, where he is wanted in a corruption scandal.
In court papers filed this month, U.S. public defender Graham Archer argued that Toledo should be released on bail because of "inhumane" conditions at Santa Rita Jail, where he is being kept in solitary confinement.
Toledo is isolated from other inmates at the Alameda County jail because of his high-profile case and has only been allowed to go outdoors once for 45 minutes since his detention, his attorney said.
Magistrate Judge Thomas S. Hixson in San Francisco previously denied bail for Toledo after prosecutors argued he was a flight risk and noted that officials found a suitcase with $40,000 in cash during his arrest.
U.S. marshals detained Toledo at his Northern California home on July 16 on an extradition request.
The ex-president is accused in Peru of taking $20 million in bribes from a construction company.
Archer said several friends, including Stanford professors, have offered money and property to secure Toledo's release from custody.
U.S. marshals detained Toledo at his California home on July 16 after the Peruvian government requested his extradition to stand trial on charges of influence peddling and money laundering.
The charges stem from allegations that he took $20 million in bribes from Odebrecht, a Brazilian construction company at the center of Latin America's biggest corruption scandal.
Three days after his arrest, Hixson ordered Toledo held, reasoning that if he fled, "this would be a diplomatically significant failure of the United States to live up to its treaty obligations to Peru."
The defense countered that Toledo has been aware of the attempt to extradite him since February 2017 and had not tried to flee California, where they said he lived as a permanent legal resident.
Toledo, who has denied wrongdoing, was Peru's president from 2001 to 2006.
He was a visiting scholar at Stanford University as recently as 2017, though the school has said it was an unpaid position. He was working on a book.
The Odebrecht scandal also has tainted the careers of other former presidents in Peru who are under investigation.
In April, former leader Alan García killed himself with a gunshot to his head as officers waited to arrest him in a graft probe linked to the scandal.
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