The Federal Prosecutor’s Office today filed an indictment against a former adviser to the mayor of Mayagüez, José Guillermo Rodríguez, and six other people for the crimes of electronic fraud and money laundering.
Defendants include former Judge Arnaldo Irizarry, who also served as City Council’s legal counsel until 2019. Federal authorities have indicted Steve Minger, Stephen Kirkland, Alejandro Riera-Fernández, Joseph Kirkland, Roberto Mejill Tellado and Eduardo García. Jimenez. According to the indictment, García-Jiménez also served as a councilor for the municipality of Mayagüez and the corporation. Mayagüez economic development (MEDI). While Mejill Tejado, according to the indictment, was an entrepreneur who provided financial advice to the city council.
According to the indictment, between March 2016 and June 2018, the defendants coordinated a fraud scheme of the municipality of Mayagüez and MEDI of funds belonging to the municipal council. Similarly, the fraud took place after the defendants misrepresented a $ 9 million investment with funds from the municipality and MEDI. There are four criminal charges against Irizarry: one for conspiracy to commit bank fraud, two for bank fraud and one for money laundering.
For the scheme, the defendants allegedly used about 13 existing corporations and other ghosts to receive and transfer hundreds of thousands of dollars belonging to the Mayagüez municipality. These funds, according to the federal prosecutor’s office, were intended for investment.
According to the indictment, the $ 9 million investment came after Mayagüez received a million-dollar allocation for improvements to the Local Council’s Trauma Center between 2014 and 2016. Of the money allocated, Mayagüez received about $ 8.7 million, which was transferred to the city council. Thus, the municipality then transferred a total of $ 9 million to MEDI – an entity created to promote the economic development of the municipality and promote infrastructure projects – to make an investment, as recommended by García-Jiménez.
García-Jiménez promised the municipality that the investments will generate high economic returns, with a rate of return of over 8%. After receiving the $ 9 million, García-Jiménez bought several bonds in the United States Treasury at a profit rate of 2%. Instead, García-Jiménez – along with the other defendants – made transfers to personal accounts. The former councilor made a payment to the municipality of 1.8 million dollars and assured him that it is a return on investment. However, according to the indictment, García-Jiménez withdrew the funds from the initial investment of $ 9 million.
On several occasions, García-Jiménez allegedly made transfers of these funds to other bank accounts in coordination with Stephen Kirkland, who is a financial adviser at Union Banc Investment Services (Ubis). After transferring the balance to an account with LPL Financial, García-Jiménez repeatedly tried to hide from person C – a financial officer of that institution – that those funds belonged to the municipality of Mayagüez.
After several transactions with four banks, the defendants began withdrawing from these accounts for personal use. Of that $ 9 million, Joseph Kirkland, Stephen’s brother and president of a financial institution, transferred about $ 10,000 to a personal account at Heritage Oak Bank; about $ 500,000 was transferred to García-Jiménez’s personal account; a $ 100,000 transfer to Stephen Kirkland and $ 1.14 million to a Garcia-Jiménez account at Wells Fargo Bank.
In 2016, García-Jiménez allegedly transferred $ 1.8 million to a MEDI account to make the corporation and the municipality believe that they generated a return on investment when in reality they were funds obtained from the main initial 9 millions of dollars. .
According to the indictment, the defendants allegedly used the money to buy a sea ship, jewelry, clothing, school fees, restaurants, utilities, credit card payments, interior decorations, property improvements, such as building a swimming pool. .and payments on a mortgage.
Between April and December 2016, Irizarry was also received $ 126,100 from the mentioned investment.
On September 28, 2016, García-Jiménez asked one of his employees – Individual D – to send a letter to the finance director of the municipality of Mayagüez to indicate that the $ 9 million from MEDI was still invested. However, these funds were no longer invested according to the indictment. In November 2017, García-Jiménez again asked the municipality to maintain the investment for three to five years, as it could earn 18% interest and generate approximately $ 87,300 per month.
In April 2018, García-Jiménez again insisted to the municipality that the $ 9 million was still intact and ready to be reinvested.
Look at the indictment here:
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