A jury of 12 members found Carlos Pólit guilty of the six charges against him, for money laundering conspiracy related to the collection of bribes.
Carlos Pólit heard his verdict in the trial against him in Miami.
From Miami, Florida. Former comptroller Carlos Pólit surrendered before three agents of the Marshals Service in the Court of the Southern District of Florida, after a jury in Miami decided, on April 23, 2024, to declare him guilty of all the charges against him, after two weeks of trial.
Pólit surrendered to the agents minutes after prosecutor Alexander Kramer requested his arrest, warning that there was a risk of flight. This is due to the fact that the former comptroller already fled Ecuador before an arrest and because there is still cash and property that has not been able to be traced.
The defense lawyer, Howard Srebnick, assured that Pólit has already completed his house arrest without problems and that there is no risk of escape, since his passport is confiscated. But he immediately announced that he decided to surrender to the agents voluntarily.
Then, the three agents approached and the former controller took off his jacket and tie and walked with them to a door located on one side of the room. There, he was going to be transferred to the Miami Federal Detention Center, located in front of the Court.
The Prosecutor’s Office presented six charges against Pólit, 73 years old, which were sustained in 10 days of trial. The jury unanimously decided to find him guilty in all of them:
- Charge 1: Conspiracy (what in Ecuador would be an illicit association) to launder money.
- Charges 2-4: money laundering in transfers made by Plastiquim and Cosani to the Florida account of Venture Overseas, one of the companies of John Pólit, son of the former comptroller.
- Counts 5-6: The purchase of an office building and a remodel of a home in Florida.
Pólit received the verdict sitting next to his lawyers and with his family sitting on the benches behind him, very calm. While the court assistant read the charges and the decision, he stood straight, with his arms crossed, without returning to see his children.
They, on the other hand, lowered their heads and seemed very affected; one covered his face while hearing the word “guilty” six times.
With this, the judge in the case, Kathleen Williams, has 45 days to issue the sentence, in which she must establish the sentence that Pólit must serve.
The confiscated assets
Pólit faced six counts of conspiracy to money laundering and transactions with assets derived from criminal activities. As part of the sentence, the Prosecutor’s Office requested that two assets be confiscated.
The jury agreed to seize the first, an office building located at 1900 Coral Way, acquired in 2016 by Tomas Kucera with money transferred by Italcom, one of the Isaías companies, which laundered money from Odebrecht.
Kucera also received transfers from Diego Sánchez, in exchange for the money that Pólit would have given him in cash in Ecuador.
This building cost USD 2.6 million, of which the Prosecutor’s Office was able to identify through an expert report that USD 1.2 million came from bribes from Odebrecht.
The second property that the Prosecutor’s Office sought to seize has not appeared directly in the trial. It is an apartment on the seventh floor of the Merrick Manor building, in the Coral Gables area.
However, the jury determined that the Prosecutor’s Office failed to prove its connection to the bribes received by Pólit.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, this property would have been purchased with the money from the sale of the remodeled Los Pinos house. The money from Odebrecht and Diego Sánchez was used to pay for the remodeling of this luxurious property, located in the Cocoplum urbanization, also in Coral Gables.
Prosecutor Marx Calderón explained that, with the resources from the sale of the house, the apartment in Merrick Manor was purchased in 2022, for USD 865,000. The Prosecutor’s Office presented, as new evidence, a check issued by JC Funds (a company of John Pólit) to the company that sold the apartment in the Merrick Manor building.
News published at 1:18 p.m. and updated at 2:30 p.m. with the interventions after the verdict; at 2:45 p.m. with the verdict on the confiscation of assets, and at 3:15 p.m. with the delivery of Pólit.
