http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 02301.html

Ex-Salvadoran Official Gets 29-Year Sentence

By Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 19, 2006; Page B02

A former congressman from El Salvador was sentenced yesterday to 29 years in a U.S. prison for helping to smuggle tons of cocaine into this country while serving in the Salvadoran legislature.

U.S. District Judge Michael M. Mihm denied William Eliu Martinez's request for a new trial and told Martinez that he would have received life in prison were it not for glowing testimonials from several relatives and friends, who traveled to Washington this week from Alabama and Texas to describe the man they knew as generous, God-fearing and kind.


"It's clear . . . that there are aspects of your life that are good," Mihm told Martinez, 46, a churchgoing father of four. "But I believe it's the story of a person who lived a good life, and who reached a point -- I don't know why -- and decided to go in a different direction.

"You made a terrible decision," the judge continued. "You started down a road that's brought you here today."

Martinez, who lived much of his adult life in the United States before returning to El Salvador and running for office, said that he is innocent and was targeted for prosecution by political opponents in San Salvador. Though U.S. prosecutors showed that he had licensed high-speed boats and leased waterfront property in Salvadoran towns known as trafficking hubs, and interacted with known dealers, his attorneys have contended that there was no definitive evidence linking him to the drug trade.

Prosecutors said the drug activities took place from 1998 to 2002. Martinez, a member of the National Action Party, was elected in 1999 and was a congressman until 2002.

Federal agents who said Martinez confessed after his arrest in Panama in 2003 are lying, Martinez told the judge yesterday. Although they held him for three days without feeding him, Martinez said through a Spanish-language interpreter, "I never told them that I was involved in any drug activity."

Four others were indicted as conspirators in the drug-smuggling operation, including alleged kingpin Otto Herrera-Garcia, who escaped from a Mexican prison last May, a few weeks before Martinez's trial began. Authorities said a three-year investigation showed that the drug ring had smuggled 36 tons of cocaine into the United States.

Martinez was convicted in June. Under federal sentencing guidelines, he faced a minimum of 10 years and a maximum of life in prison.

Martinez, who has no prior criminal record, had claimed that his right to a fair trial was compromised because his original court-appointed attorney stopped communicating with him and failed to call character or defense witnesses. With the help of a fellow inmate at the D.C. jail, he wrote letters to Mihm begging for help.

Mihm allowed federal public defender Shawn Moore to withdraw from the case in November. But he denied Martinez's request for a new trial yesterday, saying that he found no relevant new evidence to justify such a move. Martinez's current attorney, Jonathan C. Belcher, said he will file an appeal.

Yesterday's testimony largely focused on the 19 years Martinez spent in the United States -- studying English, working a series of low-paying jobs, then opening an auto body shop and investing in real estate.

His brother, brother-in-law and several friends said Martinez gave generously to relief efforts in El Salvador and routinely offered food and other assistance to the needy and homeless in Houston, where he mostly lived.

"He's gone out of his way to assist people who needed help," said Houston pastor David Polanco, whose church Martinez used to attend. Among other things, he said, Martinez donated beds to a nursing home and helped bring a young girl to the United States from El Salvador to see her ailing mother before the woman died.

A federal prosecutor in the case called the character witnesses' portrayals compelling but not necessarily complete.

"Sometimes individuals don't tell everything to everyone, what they've been involved in," said Michael C. Mota of the Department of Justice. "The court heard the evidence, and there was a lot of it."