Free Republic

(English-language translation) Ramón "Moncho" Velasco, former campaign treasurer for [Governor] Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, was summoned to FBI offices today in relation to the Grand Jury's investigation into donations the former Resident Commissioner's campaign committee received in 2002, sources to EL VOCERO confirmed. EL VOCERO sources point out that the federal authorities are investigating how much the Governor knew and his participation in [the collection of] donations for his political campaign. Since the federal investigation into the Acevedo campaign's collection of electoral funds became public, Popular Democratic Party officials have said that they do not know Velasco's whereabouts. Federal Elections Commission...

(English-language translation) Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Internal Revenue Service interviewed Popular Democratic Party (PPD) Executive Director Aníbal José Torres yesterday and submitted two information requests to the State Elections Commission (CEE) related to the investigation [a] Grand Jury is conducting on Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá’s 2000 campaign. EL VOCERO learned that the Federal Grand Jury’s information requirements were signed by U.S. Attorney María Domínguez and give the PPD a July 15 deadline to produce the documentation. In the case of the information requirements to the CEE, all documents from the PPD’s political action committees...

FBI agents are focusing on campaign contributions solicited by two Philadelphia fund-raisers as part of their corruption investigation into Puerto Rico's governor, sources said. Authorities suspect that tens of thousands of dollars in checks to Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vilá's campaign fund were "straw contributions" - donations made in the names of Philadelphia-area secretaries, administrators, and one office worker's mother - to avoid finance limits. Some of the checks under scrutiny were raised by dentist Candido Negron and his business partner, Robert Feldman, once a top Democratic fund-raiser who is still a focus of the City Hall pay-to-play probe here. In...

(English-language translation) Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá admitted yesterday that the Popular Democratic Party (PPD) [which he chairs] paid over $30,000 in custom-made suits for him and justified the fact that payments were made mostly in cash, thus saying that it is not illegal. Reports from radio station NotiUno provided evidence that Acevedo paid the Euromodas store in Plaza las Américas [Mall] $27,255.75 in custom-made suits. They also showed the invoices as evidence that payment was made in cash, with the exception of a few minor purchases that did not exceed $3,400. The price of the suits started at $2,000 each,...

(English-language translation) The anguish of over 90,000 public employees [in Puerto Rico] who have been out on the street for almost two weeks will end on Monday. Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, Senate President Kenneth McClintock, and House of Representatives Speaker José Aponte abided yesterday by the recommendations the so-called Consensus Commission presented to them to solve the government’s fiscal crisis. The Commission worked for two days in search of a solution to the island’s fiscal crisis that compromised the government’s operations. “The report recommends that the Government Development Bank (BGF) grant the Department of the Treasury a loan of up...

(English-language translation) In the midst of the fiscal crisis that keeps 95,000 [Puerto Rico] public employees out on the street, several [opposition] New Progressive Party Representatives held a press conference to show the episode of a television series that, in their opinion, demonstrates that Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá is pulling a publicity stunt out of the situation. Representatives Liza Fernández, Albita Rivera, Georgie Navarro, and Rolando Crespo met with the island’s press to watch the episode of an American television series. The reason behind the [press] conference was to demonstrate that the Governor has copied the actions of the series’...

(English-language translation) [Members of] the United Public Servants of Puerto Rico (SPU) marched to the Governor’s Mansion and the Capitol yesterday to hand Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá and House Speaker José Aponte two giant banners with a layoff letter for each which announces that they will have to take leave without pay just as the 95,000 public employees who are unemployed since Monday. The march left Colón Square in Old San Juan towards the Governor’s Mansion, where an SPU delegation including its President Ellie Ortiz and its founder José La Luz were received outside by the Governor’s legal advisor Hugo...

(English-language translation) [Puerto Rico] Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá should resign from office if he is incapable of taking economy measures to avoid the present government crisis, former Governor Carlos Romero Barceló said yesterday, and also asked what became of the $400 million that were not assigned to the Aqueduct & Sewer Authority (AAA). The [opposition] New Progressive Party (PNP) leader declared that the short-term solution to this fiscal year’s deficit problem is a loan with a tax to corporations and organizations with a gross income that exceeds $10 million. In Romero’s judgment, the long-term solution to the economic problem is...

(English-language translation) The possibility of an agreement to solve the fiscal problem that yesterday kept the [Puerto Rico] government partially shut down for a second consecutive day vanished again in the afternoon when Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá abruptly left a meeting with House of Representatives Speaker José Aponte, alleging that the latter was being disrespectful. The Governor claimed that he decided to leave the meeting because Aponte addressed him in a mocking tone, which the Speaker flatly rejected, accusing him of lying. “At one moment, I told [Aponte] that I was glad that he could smile, because he was really...

(English-language translation) Threats against the life of [Puerto Rico] Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá do not end. Among the latest, an individual called the Governor's Mansion twice yesterday saying that [Acevedo] had one more day to live, among other threatening and vulgar phrases. Other threats were made on Saturday morning when a woman called attorney Zaidée Acevedo Vilá, a sister of the Governor's, three times saying that she was an FBI official and that the Chief Executive had to leave the Governor's Mansion because [members of] the Macheteros [terrorist group] were going to kidnap him. Both the calls received yesterday at...