Rodolfo Hernandez, who ended second in Colombia’s presidential election of 2022 was sentenced to five years and four months for corruption.
The judge ruled that Hernandez will be allowed to be serve his time at home because of health issues and will have to pay a fine of $490 (COP2 million).
The former presidential candidate and leader of the “League of Anti-Corruption Governors” party had already been convicted in March.
In the conviction, the judge confirmed that Hernandez illegally granted a contract to process waste from the city of Bucaramanga to a company that had promised a $666,000 commission to his son.
The politician and the company, Vitalogic, agreed to the waste management plan during a meeting in Hernandez’s home in 2016, the prosecution found out.
During this meeting, said the prosecution, the former mayor “gave them classified information” that allowed the company to outbid the competition.
Hernandez subsequently put pressure on Bucaramanga’s public utilities company to “conceal the rules of the contract” in order to secure his son’s commission.
The former presidential candidate defended his actions by claiming that he and his son were “so dumb” that they never realized that the rigging of the waste management bid was illegal.
Despite mounting evidence of his own corruption, Hernandez received more than 10 million votes in the second round of the 2022 presidential election, which he lost to President Gustavo Petro.