{"id":160793,"date":"2026-02-19T04:30:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T04:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/160793\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T04:30:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T04:30:19","slug":"ex-honduran-president-hernandez-given-special-treatment-after-trump-pardon-propublica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/160793\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Honduran President Hern\u00e1ndez Given Special Treatment After Trump Pardon \u2014 ProPublica"},"content":{"rendered":"

For months, President Donald Trump has railed against Latin American narcoterrorists flooding the United States with \u201clethal poison.\u201d He has used the scourge of drug trafficking as a rationale for dozens of military strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean, which have left more than 140 people dead<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last month, Trump cheered a military assault by U.S. forces that captured Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and brought them to the U.S. to face charges related to cocaine trafficking. Maduro, Trump said<\/a>, led a \u201cvicious cartel\u201d that \u201cflooded our nation with lethal poison responsible for the deaths of countless Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

But when it comes to former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez, who was tried and convicted in the U.S. in 2024 and sentenced to 45 years<\/a> in prison for taking bribes and allowing traffickers to export more than 400 tons of cocaine to the U.S., Trump has taken a decidedly softer tone.<\/p>\n

Hern\u00e1ndez, he said, has been \u201ctreated very harshly and unfairly\u201d \u2014 so unfairly that on Dec. 1, Trump pardoned the former president after he served less than four of those 45 years.<\/p>\n

But the federal government\u2019s magnanimity did not end there. On the day he was to be released, records show, Hern\u00e1ndez had an immigration detainer \u2014 a request for law enforcement agencies to hold noncitizens for pickup by Immigration and Customs Enforcement \u2014 in place.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here, too, the Trump\u2019s administration\u2019s treatment of Hern\u00e1ndez differed from its public objectives. Other noncitizens caught up in recent immigration sweeps \u2014 the vast majority<\/a> of whom do not have criminal records<\/a> \u2014 have faced swift efforts to deport them, even to countries where they may face threats. But in Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s case, the Federal Bureau of Prisons scrambled to get his detainer removed so he could walk free.<\/p>\n

And Hern\u00e1ndez did not just walk out of the prison. Despite persistent budget and staffing shortages<\/a>, prison officials paid a specialized tactical team overtime to drive Hern\u00e1ndez from a high-security facility in West Virginia to the famed five-star Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City, according to records and three people familiar with the situation. Before he left, Hern\u00e1ndez was allowed to use the captain\u2019s government phone to talk to the federal prison system\u2019s deputy director, Joshua Smith, who was convicted in a drug trafficking conspiracy before Trump pardoned him<\/a> in 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe [prisons bureau] administration rolled out the red carpet for him,\u201d said Joe Rojas, a retired prison worker and former union leader who has been speaking to the media on behalf of staff who fear reprisals for doing so since bureau leaders stopped recognizing the union last year. \u201cThe staff are disgusted.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Renato Stabile, the court-appointed lawyer representing Hern\u00e1ndez \u2014 who has long maintained his innocence<\/a> \u2014 said his client\u2019s treatment was appropriate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be particularly cruel to grant somebody a pardon and have them released from prison \u2014 only to have them immediately shipped back to a place like Honduras where they would\u2019ve immediately arrested him or he would\u2019ve been killed on sight by criminal elements that wanted to do him harm,\u201d Stabile told ProPublica. Through his attorney, Hern\u00e1ndez declined to comment.<\/p>\n

ICE referred all questions to the White House, which responded with a link to a November\u00a0social media post<\/a>\u00a0announcing the President\u2019s intent to pardon Hern\u00e1ndez. Smith didn\u2019t respond to an emailed request for comment. A BOP spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the bureau does not discuss conditions of confinement or security procedures and that employee standards of conduct prohibit staff from giving any prisoners preferential treatment. \u201cViolators may be subject to disciplinary actions, including removal from federal service and criminal prosecution,\u201d the statement said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The investigation that ultimately ensnared Hern\u00e1ndez stretched across several U.S. presidencies. Despite looming legal trouble stateside and widespread allegations of corruption<\/a> in his country, Hern\u00e1ndez \u2014 often known by his initials, JOH \u2014\u00a0was seen as a key U.S. ally<\/a> under the Obama and first Trump administrations, ostensibly because of his apparent willingness to help tackle drug trafficking and migration issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2012, as president of Honduras\u2019 National Congress, he famously pushed through a legal change<\/a> allowing for the extradition of accused criminals to the U.S. \u2014 a reform that his attorney pointed out was ironically later used to extradite him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But in 2018, less than halfway through Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s second term as president, the Drug Enforcement Administration arrested his younger brother<\/a>, former Honduran congressman Tony Hern\u00e1ndez, in Miami for a series of weapons and drug trafficking charges. A jury found him guilty the following year at a Manhattan federal trial in which Emil Bove \u2014 the federal prosecutor who would later become Trump\u2019s personal defense lawyer \u2014 gave a closing argument<\/a> replete with allegations implicating the Honduran president in criminal schemes. (Bove could not be reached for comment.)<\/p>\n

Although the sprawling criminal case focused on narcotrafficking concerns, Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s political career was fraught in other ways. Dana Frank, a University of California, Santa Cruz history professor who studies Honduras<\/a>, described him as a \u201crepressive criminal on multiple fronts.\u201d<\/p>\n

While in congress in 2012, he led a \u201ctechnical coup\u201d<\/a> in overthrowing the supreme court<\/a>, she said. Then, he ran for reelection to the presidency in 2017<\/a> \u201cin complete violation of the constitution<\/a>,\u201d she said. Amid the resulting protests, security forces shot and killed at least 16 people, including two children, among other human rights abuses, a United Nations report found<\/a>. Hern\u00e1ndez has said little publicly, but his government told the U.N. it would look into those cases. His party has tweeted<\/a> that it has an \u201cunwavering commitment to democracy and freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weeks after Hern\u00e1ndez left office in 2022, he was arrested at his home in Honduras and extradited to the U.S. to face drug trafficking and weapons charges. Prosecutors said<\/a> he funded his political career with millions of dollars he received from \u201cviolent drug-trafficking organizations\u201d in exchange for allowing them to \u201cmove mountains of cocaine\u201d out of the country.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stabile told ProPublica the case against his client was always a weak one, relying heavily on the word of unreliable drug traffickers with outlandish stories and little in the way of hard evidence.<\/p>\n

Still, the government\u2019s case was enough to convince a jury to convict Hern\u00e1ndez after just over eight hours of deliberations<\/a>, and in June 2024 he was sentenced<\/a> to 45 years in federal prison. Afterward, Stabile and his client began working on an appeal<\/a>, which at that point appeared to be Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s only shot at freedom.<\/p>\n

Early last year, prison officials transferred Hern\u00e1ndez out of the federal detention center in Brooklyn, which largely holds pretrial detainees<\/a>, and sent him to the high-security Hazelton penitentiary in West Virginia. Dubbed \u201cMisery Mountain,\u201d the notoriously violent prison is the same facility where mob boss James \u201cWhitey\u201d Bulger was beaten to death in his cell hours after his arrival in 2018.<\/p>\n

Yet prison sources said Hern\u00e1ndez seemed to do his time quietly, eventually landing in the coveted housing unit set aside for a therapeutic program<\/a> used to treat drug addiction, mental illness and \u201ccriminal thinking errors.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But after Trump returned to office last year, a much quicker route to freedom suddenly seemed possible: a pardon.<\/p>\n

Like Trump, Hern\u00e1ndez was a member of his country\u2019s right-wing party. And, like Trump, he believed he\u2019d been targeted by leftist forces. He also had other reasons to be hopeful.\u00a0<\/p>\n

During his time in office, Hern\u00e1ndez had championed the creation of special economic zones that could set their own taxes and regulations, a move that benefitted the Trump-aligned Silicon Valley titans who invested in them, including Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen<\/a>. But the law was repealed by his successor, center-left party<\/a> Libre member Xiomara Castro, putting plans for the zones in jeopardy. (Andreessen responded to a request for comment with a link to a social media post<\/a> disavowing any involvement in the pardon. Thiel could not be reached for comment, though he has previously said he was not involved either<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Longtime political operative Roger Stone also suggested in a blog post<\/a> co-authored with conservative activist Shane Trejo in January 2025 that pardoning Hern\u00e1ndez could have political benefits for Trump. In the post, Trejo and Stone \u2014 who was pardoned by Trump five years ago after he was convicted of obstructing a congressional investigation into Russian election interference \u2014 urged the president to \u201ccrush socialism and save a freedom city in Honduras\u201d with a \u201cwell-timed pardon\u201d that \u201ccould be the final death blow to [Xiomara] Castro\u201d in the 2025 elections.<\/p>\n

Eventually, Stone took on a more direct role in advocating for clemency when he gave Trump a four-page letter<\/a> Hern\u00e1ndez had written to the U.S. president, asking for a pardon and making the case that his conviction was a \u201cpolitical persecution\u201d by the Biden administration. In a text message with ProPublica, Stone said he had received the letter from a journalist who\u2019d gotten it from the family. He emphasized repeatedly that he was not compensated for his involvement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI read the letter and then did my own research and elected to send the letter to President Trump,\u201d Stone wrote. \u201cI actually had no contact with JOH or anyone in his family until after the pardon.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Nov. 28, two days before the Honduran presidential election, Trump announced his intent to pardon Hern\u00e1ndez. Stabile said he didn\u2019t learn the news until Ana Garc\u00eda Car\u00edas, the former president\u2019s wife, called him in tears:<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s letting him out! Trump\u2019s pardoning Juan Orlando!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

She sent Stabile a screenshot from Truth Social<\/a>, where Trump had written that he would grant him a \u201cFull and Complete Pardon.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The decision met with bipartisan backlash from lawmakers. Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, called the unexpected reprieve<\/a> \u201cdisgusting and incomprehensible,\u201d while Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, described it as<\/a> \u201chorrible optics.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his post, Trump also urged Hondurans to vote for the National Party candidate, Nasry \u201cTito\u201d Asfura, who was trailing in multiple polls<\/a>, adding what to observers of Latin American politics was a thinly veiled threat: If Asfura did not win, Trump said, the U.S. would \u201cnot be throwing good money after bad\u201d in support of Honduras.<\/p>\n

The message was obvious, experts said. \u201cThat pardon was a clear green light for the National Party to manipulate the vote,\u201d one former high-ranking U.S. diplomat told ProPublica.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the end, Asfura narrowly edged out center-right candidate Salvador Nasralla and handily defeated the incumbent Libre party. But the count was plagued by delays, reports of voter intimidation<\/a> and allegations of fraud<\/a>, and Nasralla later formally challenged the outcome<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Dec. 1 \u2014 while the votes were still being counted in Honduras \u2014 Trump posted<\/a> again on Truth Social in support of Asfura. \u201cLooks like Honduras is trying to change the results of their Presidential Election. If they do, there will be hell to pay!\u201d The former president\u2019s pardon officially went through that same day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That evening at Hazelton, after the prisoners had already been fed dinner, corrections officers showed up at the housing unit to get Hern\u00e1ndez. Smith, the bureau\u2019s deputy director, wanted to speak with him. The newly pardoned inmate was escorted to the captain\u2019s office, where he used the captain\u2019s phone to talk to Smith, his fellow pardon recipient, according to a source familiar with the situation. The move shocked current and former prison staff.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hern\u00e1ndez was also allowed to talk with his family, who then phoned Stabile and told him the good news. Within the hour, Stabile said, he got a call from Smith, inquiring about a release plan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m in Manhattan and he\u2019s in West Virginia,\u201d Stabile told Smith. \u201cIt would take me six hours to come pick him up. Can you transport him?\u201d<\/p>\n

Because most inmate releases are done during the daytime, prison staff had to be called back in to handle the paperwork and logistics of freeing an inmate. But there was a problem: Hern\u00e1ndez had an immigration hold.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When noncitizens are convicted of crimes in the U.S., immigration officials routinely sign detainers asking prisons and jails to turn them over to ICE for possible deportation proceedings\u00a0 following their release date. In Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s case, records show immigration agents sent the prison notice of a detainer in February 2025, two months after he was sentenced in court.<\/p>\n

For several hours on the night of his release, prison officials scrambled to get the detainer removed so he could walk free, according to several sources familiar with the situation.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely special treatment. That\u2019s not normally the way it goes,\u201d said Lena Graber, a senior staff attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. \u201cMost people with drug convictions would never get their ICE detainer removed just because the conviction was pardoned.\u201d<\/p>\n

Records show immigration officials lifted the detainer on Hern\u00e1ndez just after 11 p.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Typically, according to a source familiar with the situation, prisoners who are released from Hazelton when there\u2019s inclement weather or when it\u2019s too late in the day to catch a plane or bus home are put up at the Microtel Inn and Suites at the bottom of the hill. It\u2019s a two-star hotel where a room costs $69 per night. In the morning, they\u2019re given a ticket and sent on their way.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But for Hern\u00e1ndez, prison officials activated a four-man tactical team, paying at least three of them overtime to drive him to the luxury hotel in Manhattan, according to government records and law enforcement sources. A standard room there costs more than $1,000 per night. Stabile declined to comment on where Hern\u00e1ndez stayed but said the government did not pay for it.<\/p>\n

It was another move that stunned prisons bureau staff. One official called it \u201cabsolutely fucking nuts,\u201d adding, \u201cI don\u2019t even think that\u2019s ever been done, not just for a pardoned inmate but for anyone who\u2019s been released.\u201d Another agreed that it was unprecedented: \u201cUsually, they get a shitty bus ride or a cheap plane ticket. They don\u2019t get the carpet rolled out for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

As of now, the former president\u2019s whereabouts are unknown. A few days after his release, Hern\u00e1ndez said in Spanish in a social media post<\/a> that he had \u201cno intention of returning to Honduras\u201d immediately because he and his family would be in \u201cgrave danger given the evident persecution and the weaponization of justice against me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

If Hern\u00e1ndez is in the U.S., it\u2019s unclear what his immigration status is.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Honduran officials have issued a warrant<\/a> for Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s arrest over years-old fraud allegations and, in a social media post, asked Interpol and other international allies to honor it. But a law enforcement official familiar with the situation told ProPublica there is currently no pending Interpol red notice asking for law enforcement to detain him. The only request the network received to issue such a notice, the official said, was declined while Hern\u00e1ndez was still in prison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For months, President Donald Trump has railed against Latin American narcoterrorists flooding the United States with \u201clethal poison.\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[139,141,140],"class_list":["post-160793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}