The former Honduran President was convicted in March for assisting cartels in trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine into the US.
The sentence included an $8 million (roughly €7.5 million) fine.
While the prison term fell short of the life sentence prosecutors had sought, the 55-year-old is likely to die behind bars.
Judge P. Kevin Castel stated that the sentence should serve as a warning to “well educated, well dressed” individuals who gain power and believe their status will shield them from justice.
“I am innocent,” Hernandez declared through an interpreter in court on Wednesday. “I was wrongly and unjustly accused.”
He had also previously indicated that he would appeal the conviction.
Protesters gathered outside the New York court on Wednesday with banners calling for an end to the drug trade and displaying pictures of people who had died as a result of it in Honduras.
US federal prosecutors allege that Hernandez turned Honduras into a “narco-state” during his tenure from 2014 to 2022.
In March, he was convicted of facilitating the trafficking of approximately 500 tons of cocaine—most of it originating from Colombia or Venezuela—to the US via Honduras.
His alleged complicity began long before he was president, dating back to 2004.
Prosecutors said Hernandez used the drug money to enrich himself, finance his political campaign, and commit electoral fraud in the 2013 and 2017 presidential elections.
He was extradited to the US in 2022, shortly after leaving office, with the top court in Honduras agreeing to send him to the US.
In court, Hernandez portrayed himself as a hero in the fight against drug trafficking, claiming to have collaborated with three different former US presidents to combat the issue.
Judge Castel dismissed this portrayal, stating that the former president exhibited “considerable acting skills” to present himself as an ally of the US in fighting the cocaine trade, while actually using the country’s police and even military when necessary to protect it.
The judge called the former president a “two-faced politician hungry for power.”
Hernandez is not the first Latin American former head of state to face narcotics trafficking convictions in the US. Panama’s Manuel Noriega was sentenced in 1992, and Guatemala’s Alfonso Portillo in 2014.
