A federal judge on Monday sentenced a Virginia businessman to a little more than seven years in prison for bribing former Panamanian officials, marking the longest-ever sentence imposed in a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prosecution, the Justice Department said.
Charles Jumet, 53, pleaded guilty in November in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, in Richmond, to conspiring to violate the FCPA and to making a false statement to federal agents. Prosecutors said $212,400 in bribes made by Jumet and others between 1997 and 2003 were meant to secure maritime contracts — including the maintenance of lighthouses and buoys along Panama’s waterways.
