{"id":1591120,"date":"2022-08-05T13:33:43","date_gmt":"2022-08-05T17:33:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1591120"},"modified":"2022-08-05T13:33:46","modified_gmt":"2022-08-05T17:33:46","slug":"puerto-ricos-ex-governor-arrested-on-bribery-charges-over-alleged-election-campaign-finance-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/puerto-ricos-ex-governor-arrested-on-bribery-charges-over-alleged-election-campaign-finance-scheme\/","title":{"rendered":"Puerto Rico\u2019s Ex-Governor Arrested on Bribery Charges Over Alleged Election Campaign Finance Scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/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%2Fpuerto-ricos-ex-governor-arrested-on-bribery-charges-over-alleged-election-campaign-finance-scheme%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=1591120&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>The former governor of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-puerto-rico\">Puerto Rico<\/a> was arrested Thursday in San Juan on bribery charges related to the alleged financing of her 2020 reelection campaign, the Department of Justice (DOJ) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/pr\/former-governor-puerto-rico-arrested-bribery-scheme\">announced<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Wanda V\u00e1zquez\u00a0Garced, a member of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party who had previously promised to fight corruption,\u00a0was scheduled to appear in federal court on Aug. 4 in\u00a0Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am innocent. I have not committed any crime,\u201d she <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2022\/08\/04\/1115685539\/former-puerto-rico-governor-wanda-vazquez-bribery-charge\">told reporters<\/a> on Thursday. \u201cI assure you that they have committed a great injustice against me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>V\u00e1zquez\u00a0Garced is accused of accepting campaign services worth over $300,000 from the head of an international bank in exchange for firing the head of a regulatory office that was investigating the bank.<\/p>\n<p>She was serving as governor at the time and was running for reelection when she allegedly accepted the bribe.<\/p>\n<p>According to the indictment, V\u00e1zquez\u00a0Garced\u00a0engaged in the alleged bribery scheme from December 2019 through June 2020 when she was serving as governor and running for reelection. Four other people were allegedly involved:<\/p>\n<p>Julio Martin Herrera Velutini, 50, owned an international bank operating in San Juan at the time, and\u00a0Frances Diaz, also 50, was the president and CEO of the same bank. Mark Rossini, 60, was a former FBI special agent who provided consulting services to Herrera Velutini, and John Blakeman, 53, was a political consultant who worked on V\u00e1zquez\u00a0Garced\u2019s 2020 reelection campaign.<\/p>\n<p> \u2018Accepted the Offer of a Bribe\u2019 <\/p>\n<p>The indictment alleges that starting in 2019, Herrera\u00a0Velutini\u2019s bank became the\u00a0subject of an examination by Puerto Rico\u2019s Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions (OCIF), a regulatory agency that oversees financial institutions operating in Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors say Herrera Velutini and Rossini promised to\u00a0finance V\u00e1zquez\u00a0Garced\u2019s 2020 gubernatorial campaign if she agreed that she would appoint a new commissioner of Herrera Velutini\u2019s choosing to take over the regulatory<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The former governor of Puerto Rico was arrested Thursday in San Juan on bribery charges related to the alleged financing of her 2020 reelection campaign, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced. Wanda V\u00e1zquez\u00a0Garced, a member of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party who had previously promised to fight corruption,\u00a0was scheduled to appear in federal court on [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":2315279,"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-1591120","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\/1591120","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\/69"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1591120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1591120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1591120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1591120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1591120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}