Ex-Puerto Rico governor admits guilt in campaign finance case
Former Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vázquez pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a misdemeanor campaign finance violation for accepting a promise of a political contribution from a Venezuelan banker in 2020. The plea, significantly more lenient than the felony charges she faced in 2022, was endorsed by a senior Trump-era Justice Department official and reluctantly accepted by a federal judge, who described it as little more than a “slap on the wrist.”
Vázquez, 65, admitted in Federal District Court in San Juan to accepting a promise of a donation from a foreign national valued between $2,000 and $25,000. Under the plea agreement, she is set to be sentenced on Oct. 15 to between six months and a year of probation. The charges she faced in 2022—conspiracy, federal programs bribery, and honest services wire fraud—carried potential prison sentences of up to 20 years.
A Republican who endorsed Donald Trump and a member of Puerto Rico’s pro-statehood party, Vázquez served as governor from 2019 to 2021 following a period of political upheaval on the island. She was arrested in 2022 after a grand jury indictment alleged she accepted bribes in exchange for replacing a banking regulator who had been scrutinizing Bancrédito, a bank owned by her campaign donor, Venezuelan financier Julio M. Herrera Velutini. According to the indictment, Herrera offered $300,000 to political consultants if Vázquez replaced the regulator and subsequently set up a political action committee in her support.
After leaving court, Vázquez stated she was taking responsibility for her campaign’s failure to verify donor citizenship but insisted that she had never personally received any bribe. Her defense team successfully negotiated a reduction of charges to a misdemeanor to avoid prison time, with Justice Department officials ultimately approving the plea.
The case drew criticism from career prosecutors in Washington and San Juan, who expressed surprise at the leniency, including the presiding judge, Silvia Carreño-Coll, who noted that the penalty was minimal compared to what Vázquez could have faced. Defense attorneys countered that the agreement resulted from careful evaluation of new evidence and good-faith negotiations rather than political influence.
Vázquez, Puerto Rico’s top prosecutor in 2019, had assumed the governorship unexpectedly after mass protests forced Ricardo A. Rosselló to resign. She served less than two years and lost her bid for a full term in the 2020 primary election.
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