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A Florida man has pleaded guilty in a $16 million bribery and money laundering scheme involving his father, a former government official in Ecuador, prosecutors said.
John Christopher Polit, 43, pleaded guilty Tuesday to a charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida said in a news release Wednesday.
Polit, a former banker, laundered the bribe proceeds paid for the benefit of his father, Carlos Ramon Polit Faggioni, the former Comptroller General of Ecuador, through the U.S. financial system and into various investments in South Florida, the release said.
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Carlos Polit had received bribe payments from a major Brazil-based construction conglomerate, Odebrecht S.A., from around 2010 to 2015 in exchange for using his position to remove fines or not impose them on the company, prosecutors said.
John Polit helped his father launder the bribes through transactions involving Florida companies.
The funds were used to purchase and renovate real estate in South Florida and elsewhere, as well as buying restaurants, a dry cleaner, and other businesses, prosecutors said.
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Carlos Polit was convicted in April and sentenced to 10 years in prison last month.
John Polit faces up to 10 years in prison at sentencing, scheduled for January.
Odebrecht S.A. pleaded guilty in December 2016 to a scheme to pay nearly $800 million in bribes to public officials in 12 countries, including Ecuador.
