{"id":1589426,"date":"2022-08-04T16:02:45","date_gmt":"2022-08-04T20:02:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1589426"},"modified":"2022-08-04T16:02:54","modified_gmt":"2022-08-04T20:02:54","slug":"ex-governor-of-puerto-rico-arrested-on-bribery-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/ex-governor-of-puerto-rico-arrested-on-bribery-charges\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Governor Of Puerto Rico Arrested On Bribery Charges"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fex-governor-of-puerto-rico-arrested-on-bribery-charges%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1589426&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/topic\/puerto-rico\">Puerto Rico<\/a> Governor Wanda V\u00e1zquez was arrested on Thursday on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/topic\/bribery\">bribery<\/a> charges, according to a statement by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/topic\/department-of-justice\">Department of Justice<\/a> (DOJ).<\/p>\n<p>The federal charges are connected to the financing of V\u00e1zquez\u2019s 2020 gubernatorial campaign. Between December 2019 and June 2020, V\u00e1squez allegedly received $300,000 from a banker and a former FBI agent to pay political consultants for her campaign. Authorities believe that in return for the donations, V\u00e1zquez would have appointed the donors\u2019 desired candidate to the Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions (OCIF).<\/p>\n<p>V\u00e1zquez and other accused participants in the scheme have been charged with conspiracy, federal programs bribery, and honest services wire fraud, and face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe alleged bribery scheme rose to the highest levels of the Puerto Rican government, threatening public trust in our electoral processes and institutions of governance,\u201d Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2022\/08\/04\/americas\/puerto-rico-wanda-vazquez-governor-arrested\/index.html\">said<\/a> in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>V\u00e1zquez had previously served as Puerto Rico\u2019s secretary of justice and as a district attorney, and she became governor in 2019, after her predecessor, Ricardo Rossell\u00f3, was forced to step down by island-wide protests after a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latinorebels.com\/2019\/07\/15\/telegramgatescandal\/\">scandal<\/a> of his own.<\/p>\n<p>The DOJ also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/pr\/former-governor-puerto-rico-arrested-bribery-scheme\">named<\/a> Herrera Velutini, Frances Diaz, John Blakeman, and Mark Rossini as accused participants in the corruption scheme. Velutini, 50, is a dual Venezuelan-Italian citizen and the owner of an international bank, and Diaz, a 50-year-old resident of Puerto Rico, was the bank\u2019s president. Rossini, 60, was a former FBI special agent and a consultant for Velutini, and Blakeman, 53, is a political consultant who worked on V\u00e1zquez\u2019s 2020 campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Velutini\u2019s bank was reportedly audited in 2019 by the OCIF. Velutini and Rossini are accused of reaching out via third parties to various political candidates and offering bribes and campaign support in exchange for the replacement of the current commissioner of the OCIF with a former consultant of Velutini\u2019s. After V\u00e1zquez lost her party primary in 2020, the group allegedly attempted to reach out to her successor; an FBI informant posing as his representative caught them.<\/p>\n<p>Diaz and Blakeman have both pleaded guilty to charges connected to the bribery scheme, according to the indictment.<\/p>\n<p>Peter John Porrata, a member of V\u00e1zquez\u2019s legal team, told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2022\/08\/04\/americas\/puerto-rico-wanda-vazquez-governor-arrested\/index.html\">CNN<\/a> on Thursday that V\u00e1zquez will plead not guilty to the charges.<\/p>\n<p>V\u00e1zquez\u2019s successor, Governor Pedro Pierluisi, said in response to the ruling that under his administration, there was \u201czero tolerance for corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo one is above the law in Puerto Rico,\u201d he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/former-puerto-rico-governor-wanda-vazquez-arrested-on-bribery-charges\/\">said<\/a>. \u201cFaced with this news that certainly affects and lacerates the confidence of our people, I reiterate that in my administration, we will continue to have a common front with federal authorities against anyone who commits an improper act, no matter where it comes from or who it may implicate.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Puerto Rico Governor Wanda V\u00e1zquez was arrested on Thursday on bribery charges, according to a statement by the Department of Justice (DOJ). The federal charges are connected to the financing of V\u00e1zquez\u2019s 2020 gubernatorial campaign. Between December 2019 and June 2020, V\u00e1squez allegedly received $300,000 from a banker and a former FBI agent to &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1589524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1589426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1589426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1589524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1589426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1589426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1589426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}