Venezuela bribery witness gets light sentence in wake of Biden's pardoning of Maduro ally

A Venezuelan businessman who helped hide almost $17 million in bribe payments by an ally of President Nicolas Maduro was sentenced to six months in prison Friday by a federal judge who expressed frustration that his cooperation with law enforcement was undone by President Joe Biden’s recent pardon of a top U.S. criminal target.

Orlando Contreras had been working with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration since 2019 to investigate corruption in the South American nation.

As part of that assistance, prosecutors said, he made several dangerous trips to Venezuela to gather evidence against businessman Alex Saab and former Gov. Jose Vielma.

Saab and Vielma had both been targeted by a secret spying program exposed by The Associated Press in which the DEA sent undercover informants into Venezuela to surreptitiously record and bring criminal charges against Maduro’s inner circle.

Both men were later indicted in separate corruption cases. But while Vielma remains a fugitive, the U.S. freed Saab in December as part of a swap for 10 Americans and a Pentagon defense contractor who had been imprisoned in Venezuela.

U.S. District Court Judge Rodolfo Ruiz said he was persuaded to grant Contreras even more leniency than the government recommended because of the risks he took in pursuit of Saab — once a top criminal defendant but now someone who, ensconced in Venezuela, is unlikely to ever face justice in the U.S. again.

“Everybody skipped town," Ruiz said, «and he’s the only one who decided to stay and face justice.”

Saab, 52, was welcomed home as a hero in December by Maduro and immediately launched into a tirade against the U.S., claiming he had been tortured while awaiting extradition from Cape Verde in a bid to make him turn on