{"id":9496,"date":"2025-08-28T05:46:23","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T09:46:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=9496"},"modified":"2025-08-28T05:46:23","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T09:46:23","slug":"former-puerto-rico-gov-wanda-vazquez-pleads-guilty-to-campaign-finance-violation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=9496","title":{"rendered":"Former Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda V\u00e1zquez Pleads Guilty to Campaign Finance Violation"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

Former Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda V\u00e1zquez arrives at the federal courthouse in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025. (AP Photo\/Alejandro Granadillo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Former Puerto Rico<\/a><\/span> Gov. Wanda V\u00e1zquez pleaded guilty Wednesday to a campaign finance violation in a federal case that authorities say also involved a former FBI agent and a Venezuelan banker.<\/p>\n

V\u00e1zquez, an attorney, became the U.S. territory\u2019s first former governor to plead guilty to a crime, specifically accepting a donation from a foreigner for her 2020 political campaign. She is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 15.<\/p>\n

As she left the courthouse, V\u00e1zquez told reporters that she had confided \u201cin people around her\u2026who didn\u2019t do their job\u201d and accepted a donation pledge on behalf of the banker.<\/p>\n

Former Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda V\u00e1zquez, center, leaves the federal courthouse with her legal team in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025. (AP Photo\/Alejandro Granadillo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Former Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda V\u00e1zquez undergoes a security screening as she enters the federal courthouse in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025. (AP Photo\/Alejandro Granadillo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThey forgot to ask him for his green card,\u201d she said, without identifying who exactly was responsible. \u201cThese are situations that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

V\u00e1zquez noted that a pledge was made but no donation received. \u201cThere was no bribery here,\u201d she said. \u201cI didn\u2019t take a single cent.\u201d<\/p>\n

V\u00e1zquez was arrested in 2022<\/a><\/span> and initially accused of participating in a bribery scheme between December 2019 and June 2020 while governor.<\/p>\n

The U. S. Department of Justice said V\u00e1zquez agreed to dismiss the head of Puerto Rico\u2019s Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions in exchange for financial support toward her 2020 campaign for governor. During that time, the office was probing a bank owned by Venezuelan Julio Herrera Velutini following suspicious transactions, according to authorities.<\/p>\n

Justice officials said that Herrera Velutini and Mark Rossini, a former FBI agent who provided consulting services to him, allegedly paid more than $300,000 to political consultants to support V\u00e1zquez\u2019s campaign after she demanded the commissioner\u2019s resignation and appointed a former consultant from Herrera Velutini\u2019s bank to that position.<\/p>\n

In August 2020, V\u00e1zquez lost the primary<\/a><\/span> of the New Progressive Party to Pedro Pierluisi<\/a><\/span>, who was later elected as governor.<\/p>\n

Federal authorities initially charged V\u00e1zquez and the other two suspects with conspiracy, federal programs bribery and honest services wire fraud. If found guilty, they could have faced up to 20 years in prison.<\/p>\n

The charges were reduced earlier this year to a violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act, which calls for up to a year in prison.<\/p>\n

Herrera Velutini and Rossini also pleaded guilty Wednesday in that case and are scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 10. They did not speak to reporters.<\/p>\n

 <\/div>\n

As V\u00e1zquez prepared to enter the federal courthouse in the Puerto Rican capital of San Juan, she told reporters that the last three years have been \u201cterrible,\u201d adding that the accusations against her were untrue.<\/p>\n

She was accompanied by her attorney, Ignacio Fern\u00e1ndez, who said V\u00e1zquez \u201cfeels vindicated\u201d with the new charge.<\/p>\n

The guilty plea entered Wednesday avoided a trial scheduled to start in late August.<\/p>\n

Judge Silvia L. Carre\u00f1o Coll had previously criticized the deal, describing the new charge as a slap on the hand compared with the original charges.<\/p>\n

Two other defendants have pleaded guilty in the case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Former Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda V\u00e1zquez pleaded guilty Wednesday to a campaign finance violation in a federal case that authorities say also involved a former FBI agent and a Venezuelan banker. V\u00e1zquez, an attorney, became the U.S. territory\u2019s first former governor to plead guilty to a crime, specifically accepting a donation from a foreigner for her…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":9497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dims.apnews.com\/dims4\/default\/b507619\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/6269x4177+0+1\/resize\/980x653!\/format\/webp\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.apnews.com%2F51%2F1e%2F68722895397e18ff1daab836aa1e%2F3a97f70af4a74360bc485e1bc9dad5d3","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-polity-governance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9496"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9498,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9496\/revisions\/9498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}