Former Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez pleads guilty to campaign finance violation

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Former Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez 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.

Vázquez, an attorney, became the U.S. territory’s 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.

As she left the courthouse, Vázquez told reporters that she had confided “in people around her…who didn’t do their job” and accepted a donation pledge on behalf of the banker.

“They forgot to ask him for his green card,” she said, without identifying who exactly was responsible. “These are situations that happen.”

Vázquez noted that a pledge was made but no donation received. “There was no bribery here,” she said. “I didn’t take a single cent.”

Vázquez was arrested in 2022 and initially accused of participating in a bribery scheme between December 2019 and June 2020 while governor.

The U. S. Department of Justice said Vázquez agreed to dismiss the head of Puerto Rico’s 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.

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 Vázquez’s campaign after she demanded the commissioner’s resignation and appointed a former consultant from Herrera Velutini’s bank to that position.

In August 2020, Vázquez lost the primary of the New Progressive Party to Pedro Pierluisi, who was later elected as governor.

Federal authorities initially charged Vázquez 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.

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.

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.

As Vázquez prepared to enter the federal courthouse in the Puerto Rican capital of San Juan, she told reporters that the last three years have been “terrible,” adding that the accusations against her were untrue.

She was accompanied by her attorney, Ignacio Fernández, who said Vázquez “feels vindicated” with the new charge.

The guilty plea entered Wednesday avoided a trial scheduled to start in late August.

Judge Silvia L. Carreño Coll had previously criticized the deal, describing the new charge as a slap on the hand compared with the original charges.

Two other defendants have pleaded guilty in the case.