NEW YORK (AP) — Rebel former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was sentenced to 45 years in prison in New York on Wednesday for conspiring with bribery drug traffickers for more than a decade to ensure that more than 400 tons of cocaine entered the United States.

Judge P. Kevin Castel sentenced Hernández to 45 years in prison and an $8 million fine in the United States. He said the sentence should serve as a warning to “well-educated, well-dressed” people who rise to power and think their status will protect them from justice when they do wrong.

A jury convicted him in March in federal court in Manhattan after a two-week trial versionthat was closely followed in his home country.

“I am innocent,” Hernández said through an interpreter when his verdict was announced. “I was wrongly accused.”

In a long, impromptu statement, which the judge interrupted several times and repeatedly reminded him that this was not the right time to retry the trial, Hernández portrayed himself as a hero of the anti-drug movement who had worked with American authorities under three US presidencies to curb drug imports.

However, the judge said that evidence at trial showed otherwise and that Hernández had used “considerable acting skills” to make it appear that he was a fighter against drug trafficking while, when necessary, using his country's police and military to protect the drug trade.

Castel described Hernández as a “power-hungry politician with false faces” who protects a select group of human traffickers.

When the verdict was announced, the bespectacled Hernández, wearing a dull green prison uniform, stood next to his lawyer in front of two U.S. marshals. After shaking his lawyer's hand and turning to nod toward the packed gallery, Hernández hobbled out of the courtroom with the aid of a cane and a splint on one foot.

The prosecution had called for a life sentence plus 30 years in prison, which was in line with the recommendation of the court's probation officers.

Hernández, 55, served as head of state of the Central American country with a population of around 10 million for two terms.

He was arrested at his home in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, three months after leaving office in 2022 and was extradited to the USA in April of the same year.

U.S. prosecutors say Hernández began collaborating with drug traffickers and accepting millions of dollars in bribes as early as 2004, when he rose from rural congressman to president of the National Congress and then to the highest office in the country.

Hernández admitted in his testimony in court that virtually all political parties in Honduras received drug money, but he denied having accepted bribes himself.

In his lengthy statement on Wednesday, Hernández stressed that his trial was unfair because he was not presented with evidence that would have led the jury to acquit him. He said he was being persecuted by politicians and drug traffickers.

“It’s like I was thrown into a deep river with my hands tied,” he said.

In Honduras, US Ambassador Laura Dogu described the verdict on Wednesday as an important step in the fight against the social consequences of drug trafficking.

“Here in Honduras and in the United States, we must not forget that Juan Orlando’s actions have caused suffering to people,” Dogu said.

Honduran criminal lawyer and analyst Luis Romero said the verdict came as a surprise to many people in Honduras, who had expected him to receive a life sentence.

At a press conference in Honduras, Hernández's wife Ana García declared that her husband was innocent and called the verdict a “judicial lynching”. García – who plans to run for president next year – said she was looking forward to her husband’s appointment.

“Today is just one chapter in a series of injustices,” she said.

Witnesses at the trial included drug traffickers who admitted responsibility for dozens of murders and said Hernández was an avid protector of some of the world's most powerful cocaine traffickers, including notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who is serving a life sentence in the United States.

In his remarks, the judge found that in 2013, Guzman paid a $1 million bribe directly to Hernández's brother Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, a former Honduran congressman who sentenced to life imprisonment in a US prison in New York in 2021 for his own conviction for drug offenses.

Hernández shook his head as he heard Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacob Gutwillig tell the judge that he had chosen to “do evil.”

“No one, not even the former president of a country, is above the law,” Gutwillig said.

Hernández's verdict was handed down in a federal court less than two blocks from where former U.S. President Donald Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11 for falsifying business records.

At the sentencing, Castel spoke at length about the extent to which Hernández had been given a fair trial and described much of the key evidence that emerged during the trial that proved his guilt.

Castel called the number of murders linked to drug trafficking during Hernández's political career “staggering.” One witness linked to drug trafficking admitted at trial to being an accessory to 56 murders, and another said he was involved in 78 murders before he began cooperating with U.S. authorities.

He pointed out that Hernández only helped drug traffickers who supported his political ambitions, and not on a permanent basis.

“No, he was too smart for that,” Castel said. The judge said Hernández helped traffickers whenever he could.

“His primary goal was his own political survival,” Castel said.

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Associated Press writer Marlon González in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, contributed to this report.