Argentine Sentenced in Bolivia Bribery Scandal A Bolivian court has sentenced an Argentine businessman in absentia to six years in prison for corruption in a case that also ensnared a close collaborator of President Evo Morales. The court convicted and sentenced Agustin Tomas Melano on bribery and other charged for making payments to Santos Ramirez, a former president of Bolivia's state-run energy company. The money was in exchange for granting a consortium represented by Melano an $86 million contract to build a liquified natural gas plant. Ramirez was sentenced Thursday to 12 years in prison. He already has been jailed since 2009 Melano is a fugitive. The scandal broke in January 2009 when a Bolivian businessman was killed during the theft of $435,000 in alleged bribe money.