Puerto Rico senator refuses to step down
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| Published on Tuesday, August 26, 2008 |
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By María Miranda Sierra
Caribbean Net News Puerto Rico Correspondent
Email: miranda@caribbeannetnews.com
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico: A day after dozens of federal authorities stormed into New Progressive Party Senator Jorge De Castro Font’s office, home and a gas station, confiscating computers, documents, trash bags, two brief cases and other items, the Commonwealth’s Senate Rules and Calendar Chairman said that he will not step down from his post nor will he withdraw his candidacy for re-election.
Even though last week, he said that if he became a target of a federal probe, he would step down from his post, at a news conference Sunday at his office at the Capitol, De Castro Font said that will finish his term in the Puerto Rico Senate and that his name will appear in the 2008 electoral ballot.
“I welcome any federal investigation and I trust that this will end soon with a recovery of our persona,” De Castro Font said adding that he will let the NPP Caucus decide whether he remain as the party’s Senate Majority Leader but he will not step down from his senatorial post nor will he withdraw his candidacy for re-election.
“There are no existing charges against me hence it’s premature to make a decision on my candidacy for the November elections…They will find nothing in my work as a senator that is illegal, irregular or ill disposed,” De Castro Font said.
“I am recommending for the speculations to be set aside until the panorama is cleared up,” he added.
When asked about NPP President Luis Fortuño’s call, asking him to step down from his post and from running in the upcoming elections, De Castro Font said that Fortuño’s comments were premature and precipitated.
“I respect our [party] president’s decisions, although I don’t feel the same way,” De Castro Font said.
“We don’t even know if there is a case,” De Castro Font said while denying he has committed any wrong doing even though he is receiving legal advice from former Special Independent Prosecutor Lydia Lizarríbar.
When asked by reporters if he owned the gas station that was also searched by federal authorities Saturday morning, the NPP senator said that he doesn’t have the money to own a gas station and the only relation he has with it is that he has purchased gasoline there since 1969 and that he knows the two owners.
Although rumors of a federal probe have surfaced through the Capitol building hallways during the past few months, federal authorities have not subpoenaed De Castro Font or anyone related to him. It’s still not clear what the federal authorities are investigating.
On Saturday morning, some 40 federal agents stormed into his home, his office at the Capitol and a gas station located in the neighborhood of Miramar in San Juan, confiscating computers, documents, trash bags, a drawing of a gun, two briefcases and other undisclosed items.
De Castro Font has been a public server since 1985 and in 1989 won his first election becoming a lawmaker for the House of Representatives when he was only 26 years old. At the time he was a member of the Popular Democratic Party.
FBI Special Agent in Charge Luis Fraticelli confirmed Saturday afternoon that a total of 80 federal agents and the Internal Revenue Services had three search warrants, authorized by Federal Judge Francisco Besosa on August 21.
The three search warrants authorized federal authorities to search and confiscate materials needed for their case at De Castro Font’s apartment in Hato Rey, San Juan, his office at the Capitol and a gas station in Miramar, San Juan.
“Since the search warrants are sealed, I can’t make any specific comments related to the warrants. But all three warrants are related…” Fraticelli told reporters on Saturday. | | | | Reads : 292 | | | |
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