The United States has granted parole to Venezuela, which has been accused of bribing a lawyer

A U.S. court on Monday sentenced a Venezuelan businessman to five years in prison for allegedly bribing a lawyer in his home country of nearly $ 1 million to avoid a corruption investigation into the state-owned oil company PDVSA, according to court documents.

Carlos Urbano Fermn, owner of several companies that provided goods and services to PDVSA’s subsidiaries, escaped two years in prison requested by a U.S. attorney.

Judge Robert Scola, of Miami, Florida, accepted the defendant’s request for a lighter sentence in order to recognize the defendant’s assistance in the investigation of other crimes in Venezuela.

Last year, Ferman confessed to conspiracy to commit money laundering in the United States.

The businessman also admitted to bribing a “high-ranking” Venezuelan lawyer to avoid a judicial inquiry into the terms of contracts signed with PDVSA between 2012 and at least 2016.

According to his court testimony, Firm met with someone close to the lawyer in 2017, who promised he could skip the trial.

To get that legal protection, the businessman said he made nearly a million dollars in bank transactions from US banks to the lawyer.

According to the Miami Herald, the recipient of the money was former Venezuelan Attorney General Louisa Ortega, who was fired five years ago on charges of dictatorial overthrow of Nicolas Maduro’s socialist government.

Ortega, who left Venezuela in 2017 and now lives in Spain, denied the allegations last year, saying they were an attempt to tarnish the image of the Maduro government.