{"id":25002,"date":"2022-08-04T17:44:34","date_gmt":"2022-08-04T22:44:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/?p=25002"},"modified":"2022-08-04T17:44:34","modified_gmt":"2022-08-04T22:44:34","slug":"youre-going-down-in-flames-you-tax-fattened-hyena-94-and-95-in-a-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/?p=25002","title":{"rendered":"You\u2019re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#94 and #95 in a series)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wanda V\u00e1zquez, the former governor of Puerto Rico, has been charged with taking bribes<\/a> from a donor to her campaign.<\/p>\n

The donor, Julio M. Herrera Velutini \u2014 a Venezuelan banker who has been mired in regulatory problems in Puerto Rico \u2014 was also charged. Mr. Herrera, 50, owns Bancr\u00e9dito, an international bank that faced scrutiny from Puerto Rico regulators over suspicious banking transactions.<\/a>
\nAccording to the Department of Justice, Mr. Herrera wanted the island\u2019s top banking regulator to be replaced, and in return offered to pay $300,000 to political consultants working on the governor\u2019s campaign. Ms. V\u00e1zquez, who was facing re-election at the time, agreed to the plan, W. Stephen Muldrow, the United States Attorney for Puerto Rico, said, adding that Mr. Herrera then formed a political action committee for Ms. V\u00e1zquez.<\/a>
\nThe grand jury\u2019s 42-page indictment details meetings and text messages purported to show the quid-pro-quo nature of the arrangement. The governor went through with her end of the bargain, forcing the incumbent banking commissioner to step down and installing Mr. Herrera\u2019s choice as the new commissioner, according to the indictment.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It gets a little better: the bribe money was funneled through an ex-FBI agent.<\/p>\n

Mr. Rossini, 60, is a former F.B.I. supervisory agent who, before the Sept. 11 attacks, was assigned to a C.I.A. task force investigating Al Qaeda, but was criminally charged for illegally running unauthorized searches on a government computer. After pleading guilty to those charges, he paid a fine and served community service and a year of probation.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ms. V\u00e1zquez became governor in 2019, after the previous governor resigned. She lost the primary election in 2020. The NYT<\/strong> describes her as a pro-statehood Republican.<\/p>\n

The former governor, the banker and the former federal agent were each charged with conspiracy, federal programs bribery, and honest services wire fraud, and could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted…<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Do I need to say it?<\/a><\/p>\n

In other news, Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren got booted out of office. No, he didn’t lose an election. No, he hasn’t been indicted.<\/p>\n

Ron DeSantis fired his arse for not enforcing state law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At a news conference flanked by police from around Tampa Bay, DeSantis said Warren has \u201cput himself publicly above the law\u201d by signing letters saying he would not enforce laws prohibiting gender-affirming care for minors or laws limiting abortion.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…<\/p>\n

DeSantis\u2019 order does not cite examples of Warren not prosecuting individual cases. The state has no laws on gender-affirming care that Warren could refuse to prosecute. Instead, DeSantis\u2019 order points to Warren\u2019s public comments on abortion, transgender issues and office policies Warren has adopted.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

…Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said at Thursday\u2019s news conference that police have had long-running frustrations with Warren for not prosecuting particular cases.<\/a>
\n\u201cI continue to work with my law enforcement counterparts who privately are frustrated with the state attorney, who seems intently focused on empathy for criminals and less interested in pursuing justice for crime victims,\u201d Chronister said.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In addition to the abortion and transgender stuff, the complaints include:<\/p>\n

\u25aa Warren enacting a policy not to prosecute \u201ccertain criminal violations, including trespassing at a business location, disorderly conduct, disorderly intoxication, and prostitution.\u201d<\/a>
\n\u25aa Warren enacting a policy \u201cagainst prosecuting crimes where the initial encounter between law enforcement and the defendant results from a non-criminal violation in connection with riding a bicycle or a pedestrian violation.\u201d<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bonus: Scott Israel is apparently working as a chief of police in Opa-locka, Florida<\/a>. That’s Scott Israel, former Broward County Sheriff, who got booted from office by Ron DeSantis after the Parkland shooting. Did not know this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wanda V\u00e1zquez, the former governor of Puerto Rico, has been charged with taking bribes from a donor to her campaign. The donor, Julio M. Herrera Velutini \u2014 a Venezuelan banker who has been mired in regulatory problems in Puerto Rico \u2014 was also charged. Mr. Herrera, 50, owns Bancr\u00e9dito, an international bank that faced scrutiny […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-law","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25002"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25003,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25002\/revisions\/25003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}