LIMA -Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo was convicted and sentenced to 20 years and six months behind bars on Monday for taking bribes from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.

The guilty verdict marks Peru's first high-profile conviction related to Brazil's continent-spanning Lava Jato corruption scandal.

Toledo, a 78-year-old economist who holds a doctorate from Stanford University, governed the Andean nation between 2001 and 2006.

He was convicted of taking $35 million in bribes from the company formerly known as Odebrecht, according to prosecutors, in exchange for letting it win a contract to build the road that currently connects Peru's southern coast with an Amazonian area in western Brazil.

During the year-long trial, Toledo denied the money laundering and collusion charges.

Odebrecht, now known as Novonor, was at the center of Latin America's largest graft scandal, after admitting in 2016 that it bribed officials in a dozen countries to secure public works contracts.

Last week, Toledo asked the court to let him serve his sentence at home as he battles cancer.

"Please let me heal or die at home," he said.

  - Reuters