Puerto Rican Governor, 12 Associates Charged With Election Fraud

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Puerto Rico Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vila and 12 associates in Puerto Rico, Washington D.C., and the Philadelphia area were indicted Thursday in San Juan for alleged illegal election campaign fundraising.

The charges range from conspiracy, false statements, wire fraud, federal program fraud and tax crimes related to campaign financing for Vila's 1999-2000 and 2001-2002 campaign for Resident Commissioner of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and subsequent 2004 gubernatorial campaign.

Indictment papers allege that the defendants conspired to defraud the United States and violate various Federal Election Campaign Act provisions by having Puerto Rico businessmen make illegal and unreported contributions to pay off large and unreported debts stemming from the governor's campaigns.

Vila, 48, and legal advisor, defendant Inclan Bird, solicited, accepted, and then reimbursed illegal conduit contributions from the governor's family members and staff. Conduit contributions are illegal campaign contributions made by one person in the name of another person.

Likewise, a group of Philadelphia businessmen solicited, accepted, and then reimbursed illegal conduit contributions from their own Philadelphia-area family members and staff for Vila, who returned the favored by personally assisting the businessmen in obtaining contracts from Puerto Rico government agencies.

The businessmen used large amounts of money from their personal or corporate funds to pay for large and unreported debts to the campaign's public relations and media company. The media company created fake invoices to make the payments appear to be legitimate business expenses of the contributors' companies.

The indictment also alleges that Vila fraudulently pledged to abide by a voluntary public funding law in his successful 2004 gubernatorial campaign to get up to $7 million public funds from the Puerto Rico Treasury Department.

Vila is a superdelegate for the Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama. If detained, he wouldn't be able to attend the Democratic National Convention in August in Denver, Colorado, according to Wordpress.com.