Results tagged “puerto rico” from Latinopundit

I love it (read, hate it) when someone says we need more Latinos in office.  Why, I say (if I want a token I'll go ride the subway)? ...when it's people that make it or break it, not race.

Former member of the Puerto Rican Senate Jorge De Castro Font (former because he was arrested in October by the FBI) pleaded guilty yesterday to 21 charges of fraud and conspiracy. De Castro Font admitted that from Jan. 2, 2005, through August 2008, he “directly and indirectly solicited [...] approximately $525,000 in cash payments and other benefits, such as campaign contributions in excess of the legal limits, lodging, private flights, meals and other things of value, from individuals.”

Hattip.

I've been recieving a lot of emails about this lately:

Three Puerto Ricans with alleged ties to the independence movement in Puerto Rico have been subpoenaed to appear in Brooklyn Federal Court Friday to answer to a grand jury.

Graphic designer Tania Frontera, social worker Christopher Torres and filmmaker Julio Antonio Pabon are due in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York Friday. There are also indications that the FBI is trying to locate and subpoena Hector Rivera, one of the founders of the Welfare Poets, a New York-based collective of activists and poets.

Expected to have caused organized protests in Puerto Rico Thursday night, the investigation of these individuals by the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice also sparked New York City Council members to gather on the steps of City Hall Thursday in opposition to the subpoenas.

If Puerto Ricans have been paying attention to the news lately, they may be more inclined to entertain being independent from the US.  But the decision shouldn't be made too hasty, even the Lakota took 30 years to make sure everything would go smooth, after all every and any decision has repercussions. 

Puerto Rico Police Accused of Corruption

By MICHAEL MELIA – Oct 6, 2007

MAYAGUEZ, Puerto Rico (AP) — Mistrust of police has been ingrained for years in this bleak coastal town, where a basketball court mural shows a girl running from a baton-wielding officer under the slogan: "To be poor is not a crime."

So there was some sense of vindication when the FBI arrested 10 officers this summer, accusing them of planting drugs on residents of housing projects and other poor neighborhoods in one of Puerto Rico's worst police corruption cases.

The reach of the scandal became apparent this week when the local Justice Department recommended throwing out cases against 51 people accused of drug offenses in Mayaguez, a town on Puerto Rico's western shores.

The police unit in Mayaguez considered residents of housing projects near their precinct as "targets of opportunity," said Luis Fraticelli, the top FBI official in Puerto Rico, in an interview with The Associated Press.

"They would drive by and they didn't like the kid or whatever, so they would decide to go plant drugs on him," said Fraticelli.