Former Sonora Governor Guillermo Padrés Elias. Photo: ndsnoticias.com

By THE PULSE NEWS MEXICO STAFF    

After more than two years of incarceration, former Sonora Governor Guillermo Padrés Elias was released from the Reclusorio Oriente prison on the night of Saturday, Feb. 2, by order of the Federal Attorney General (PGR).

Padrés Elias turned himself into Mexican authorities in November 2016, after being accused of money laundering, tax fraud and embezzlement during his 2009-2015 tenure as head of the northwestern Mexican state.

His lawyer, Antonio Lozano Gracia, said Padrés Elias, maintained his innocence and said that he had been a victim of “political persecution.”

In late December 2018, Padrés Elias, a member of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), formally appealed to Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) through a recording delivered by a journalist to release him from jail and to reconsider his case.

In order to win his conditional freedom, Padrés Elias put up a bail guarantee of 40 million pesos in the form of titles of two property in his family’s name, and will have to wear an ankle monitor while his trial continues to wind its way through the Mexican courts.