The trial of former national treasurer Claudia Patricia Díaz Guillén, extradited from Spain to the United States to answer for three crimes related to money laundering, will begin on June 27 of this year.
The federal court handling the case announced the date on Thursday in a court document that also reported that Judge William P. Dimitrouleas will preside over the jury trial that will take place in Fort Lauderdale, a city about 46 kilometers to the North Miami.
Previously, on June 24, a hearing will take place in the Fort Lauderdale courts.
This week Díaz Guillén pleaded not guilty before Judge William Matthewman, in the courts of West Palm Beach, a city about 100 kilometers north of Miami (Florida) to which she was taken after her arrival from Spain on May 12 and where the first phase of the process took place.
In the hearing held on May 24, the court decided that the accused should continue to be detained and accepted that Marissel Descalzo continue to be her defense attorney, despite a possible conflict of interest, since she previously defended a former Venezuelan banker accused in a case related to the yours.
The defense, which maintains, unlike the Prosecutor’s Office, that there is no flight risk, asked the court to grant the former Venezuelan official bail, on the grounds that she allegedly does not have her own money and cannot return to Venezuela because his life would be in danger, according to a court document.
Bail would be paid by a relative living in South Florida and friends of Díaz Guillén and her husband, Adrián José Velásquez Figueroa, also pending extradition to the United States from Spain.
Díaz Guillén and her husband were very close to Hugo Chávez, who was president of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013 from cancer.
They are known as Chávez’s “nurse” and “bodyguard” because she was part of his health team before being named national treasurer, a position she held from 2011 to 2013, and he was her head of security.
Apparently his relations with Nicolás Maduro are not so good, since in 2016 they settled in Spain and say they cannot return to the country.
Díaz Guillen has dual nationality, Spanish and Venezuelan, according to the case documents, and is accused of charges of “conspiracy to commit money laundering” and “money laundering.”
