Your daily adult tube feed all in one place!
Smartmatic execs charged with orchestrating $1 million bribery and money laundering scheme
Three current and former Smartmatic executives are charged with running a brazen alleged bribery scheme to use bribes connected to use of the company's voting machine technology.
The indictment, handed down in Florida Thursday, doesn't identify the name of the company, which gained notoriety in 2000 when Donald Trump allies leveled debunked allegations that its equipment was part of a vote stealing conspiracy theory.
It is engaged in a prolonged defamation lawsuit against Fox Corp. where it is seeking $2.7 billion in damages.
Three men, including Venezuelan Roger Alejandro Pinate Martinez, 49, and Florida resident Jorge Miguel Vasquez, 62, a U.S. citizen and resident of Davie, Florida, are charged with making $1 million in bribes to the former chief of elections commission in the Philippines as part of the alleged scheme.
'These bribes were allegedly paid to obtain and retain business related to providing voting machines and election services for the 2016 Philippine elections and to secure payments on the contracts, including the release of value added tax payments,' according to a Justice Department release on the indictments.
They allegedly ran the bribes through a 'slush fund' used to run up the cost of each machine.
Also identified is Andres Bautista, the former top election official in the Philippines.
Two Smartmatic employees have been charged in a grand jury indictment with taking part in a bribery scheme in the Philippines
'To conceal and disguise the nature and purpose of the corrupt payments, the co-conspirators used coded language to refer to the slush fund and caused the creation of fraudulent contracts and sham loan agreements to justify transfers. The co-conspirators then allegedly laundered funds related to the bribery scheme through bank accounts located in Asia, Europe, and the United States, including in the Southern District of Florida,' according to the release.
The company acknowledged two employees were charged, noting in a statement that there was no allegation related to fraud in the actual vote in the 2016 elections in the Philippines but pointing out that the allegations had yet to be proven in court.
'Regardless of the veracity of the allegations and while our accused employees remain innocent until proven guilty, we have placed both employees on leaves of absence, effective immediately,' the firm said.
Smartmatic has filed a $2.7 million defamation against Fox Corp. and Donald Trump ally Rudy Giuliani and other defendants
'No voter fraud has been alleged and Smartmatic is not indicted. Voters worldwide must be assured that the elections they participate in are conducted with the utmost integrity and transparency. These are the values that Smartmatic lives by,' it said.
The firm featured prominently in the legal clash after the 2020 elections, where Trump allies accused it of being part of a vote-rigging scheme.
The firm has sued Fox News and Newsmax for defamation, in a case that a New York judge allowed to go forward in January.
Fox reached a $788 million settlement with another voting machine company, Dominion Voting Systems.
Smartmatic is suing the networks, accusing them of airing claims about the 2020 elections they knew to be false, as guests like former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and lawyer Sidney Powell sketched out elaborate conspiracy theories on air. The networks deny the allegations and are fighting them in court.
Pinate and Vasquez and charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), an anti-bribery statute, and a violation of it. Bautista, Pinate, Vasquez, and a fourth person, duel Venezuelan Israeli citizen Elie Moreno, 44, are charged with money laundering charges.
'We look forward to defending our case in court,' a Fox News spokesperson told DailyMail.com.