FLORIDA: Voting technology company Smartmatic faces money laundering charges in United States federal court in Florida over an alleged foreign bribery conspiracy.
Federal prosecutors accuse three former Smartmatic executives of funnelling one million dollars in bribes between 2015 and 2018 to a former Philippine election official.
The alleged bribery scheme aimed to secure business contracts for Smartmatic in the Philippines.
Prosecutors named Smartmatic parent company SGO Corp as a defendant in the ongoing criminal prosecution filed earlier this year.
Smartmatic issued a statement calling the charges factually and legally wrong while pledging to contest them vigorously.
The company expressed confidence in prevailing and accused the US Attorney’s Office of being misled and politically influenced.
Smartmatic claimed it had cooperated extensively with the government despite facing targeted and unjust prosecution.
Federal prosecutors in Miami did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the case.
Smartmatic’s president and co-founder Roger Alejandro Pinate Martinez has pleaded not guilty alongside other defendants.
Pinate described the indictment as legally deficient and has asked the court to dismiss the charges entirely.
Prosecutors allege bribes were paid through a slush fund created by over-invoicing voting machine costs for the 2016 Philippine elections.
Financial documents allegedly disguised the payments using coded language according to the indictment.
This criminal case emerges as Smartmatic pursues a separate 2.7 billion dollar defamation lawsuit against Fox Corp.
Smartmatic alleges Fox commentators falsely claimed its machines rigged the 2020 United States presidential election.
Fox has denied these allegations asserting its coverage was fair and constitutionally protected.
The network maintains it simply reported newsworthy allegations against the voting technology company. – Reuters
