Prominent Venezuelan psychiatrist sentenced to 20 years in prison for patient’s slaying

Venezuelan psychiatrist sentenced in slaying

CARACAS, Venezuela — A prominent Venezuelan psychiatrist who once ran for president has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in the murder of a young woman who was his patient.

The attorney general’s office said Wednesday that Edmundo Chirinos was convicted of killing 19-year-old Roxana Vargas, whose body was found with a blow to the head in 2008 in a park on the outskirts of Caracas.

Chirinos had pleaded innocent to the intentional homicide charge.

The attorney general’s office says investigators found some 1,200 photographs of nude female patients in the psychiatrist’s home. It accuses him of drugging the women and abusing them.

Chirinos was a fringe candidate for president in 1988 who came away with only a tiny fraction of the vote.