A co-founder of Smartmatic — the voting machine company that accused Fox News of defamation — was among three executives indicted Thursday in what federal prosecutors called a bribery and money laundering scheme connected to the 2016 election in the Philippines.
Roger Alejandro Piñate Martinez, 49, of Boca Raton, Florida, was indicted by a grand jury in Florida for his role in the scheme, along with Jorge Miguel Vasquez, 62, of Davie, Florida, and 60-year-old Juan Andres Donato Bautista.
Pinate was among three engineers who founded Smartmatic in the United States in 2000, the company said on its website.
Prosecutors said that between 2015 and 2018 Piñate and, Vasquez schemed to pay more than $1 million in bribes to Bautista, the former chairman of the Commission on Elections for the Republic of the Philippines. In exchange for the money, the company would receive contracts for providing voting machines and election services for the 2016 election, prosecutors said.
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"The co-conspirators allegedly funded the bribes through a slush fund, created by inflating the cost per voting machine," prosecutors said in a news release.
To conceal the payments, the group used coded words and created bogus contracts and sham loan deals, prosecutors said. They then laundered the money through bank accounts in Asia, Europe, and the United States, including in southern Florida.
Pinate and Vasquez face charges of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and a substantive violation of that same act. Along with Bautista and Elie Moreno, 44, a dual citizen of Venezuela and Israel, they also face charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and three counts of international laundering of monetary instruments.
The defendants face up to five years for FCPA violations and 20 years for the money laundering charges.
Smartmatic's website said Pinate executes "strategic efforts and daily business functions worldwide" and co-created the company’s long-term vision. He became company president in 2018 and holds a seat on the company’s global board of directors.
"Roger played a critical role in planning and executing the world’s largest election using optical scanners (in the Philippines) and in Smartmatic winning the largest election contract in US history (in Los Angeles)," the company said.