New York – Former Brazilian soccer official Jose Maria Marin, who is jailed in the United States, may be released due to the spread of the coronavirus, among other things. This was ordered by a New York court on March 30.
According to reports from the Brazilian media, the defense used the Covid 19 pandemic, advanced age (87) and health problems as arguments for the early release of the former president of the Brazilian football association CBF.
District Judge Pamela Chen in New York approved the Marin attorneys’ urgent request on Monday under the arguments cited. In addition, Marin has already served around 80 percent of his sentence and “is not considered violent,” she said.
His lawyers are now working on Marin’s return to Brazil soon. “There he has more opportunities to take care of his health and to be close to the family”, the portal “G1” quoted the lawyer Júlio Barbosa. The former CBF president was sentenced to 41 months in prison in December 2017 for crimes committed at the head of the Brazilian Football Association between 2012 and 2015: organized crime, fraud, and money laundering. According to prosecutors, Marin received a total of $ 6.5 million in bribes.
In return, he gave his influence in the allocation of marketing and television rights in South American football. In May 2015, Marin was one of the officials arrested in a hotel in Switzerland, which triggered the big FIFA scandal. At that time, Marin accepted to be extradited to the United States and spent two years in house arrest in his luxury apartment in the Trump Tower. Former CBF presidents Ricardo Teixeira and Marco Polo Del Nero have also been accused, but Brazil does not extradite citizens by law.
