US prosecutors charge Smartmatic in alleged $1M Philippines bribery case
Source: Ap
Federal prosecutors have charged voting technology firm Smartmatic with money laundering and other crimes arising from more than $1 million in bribes that several executives allegedly paid to election officials in the Philippines.
The payments, between 2015 and 2018, were made to obtain a contract with the Philippines government to help run that country’s 2016 presidential election and secure the timely payment for its work, according to a superseding indictment filed Thursday in a Florida federal court.
Three former executives of Smartmatic, including co-founder Roger Pinate, were previously charged in 2024 but at the time South Florida-based Smartmatic was not named as a defendant. Pinate, who no longer works for Smartmatic but remains a shareholder, has pleaded not guilty. The criminal case is unfolding as Smartmatic is pursuing a $2.7 billion lawsuit accusing Fox News of defamation for airing false claims that the company helped rig the 2020 U.S. presidential election in which Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump.
Smartmatic in a statement denied the allegations and said it believed the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami had been misled and politically influenced by unnamed powerful interests.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/smartmatic-bribery-charges-philippines-97a1c66eaedf769ad0e64a52166be90b
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