Puerto Rico governor denies wrongdoing

He and a dozen others were charged with campaign finance violations.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila indignantly denied wrongdoing Thursday and gave no sign he would abandon his re-election effort after being charged with campaign finance violations that carry a penalty of 20 years in prison.

Acevedo, a superdelegate to this summer’s Democratic convention, accused U.S. prosecutors of pursuing a politically motivated indictment alleging that the governor and a dozen other people conspired to illegally pay off his campaign debts.

“I am going to defend my rights and protect the dignity of my family and of the people of Puerto Rico who support me,” the governor said in a statement hours after the FBI arrested most of those named in the indictment in San Juan, Philadelphia and Washington area.

Acevedo served in Washington as the island’s nonvoting delegate to Congress, then was elected governor in 2004 after campaigning on an anti-corruption platform.

“I want to assure the people of Puerto Rico that I have never solicited nor accepted a contribution in exchange for a government contract, never permitted the illegal use of public funds nor acted illegally,” he said. “I know very well several of those accused today, and I am convinced that they never accepted a bribe or stole a single cent.”

Acevedo canceled all his public events and remained sequestered all day in the island’s powder-blue colonial governor’s residence with his wife and two children. He said he would turn himself in today.

In a brief address on Puerto Rican television Thursday evening, he repeated his denials and accused U.S. authorities of distracting him from trying to revive the island’s struggling economy. “They want blood not your well being,” he said of federal prosecutors. The governor did not take questions.

His indictment on 19 charges, including conspiracy to violate federal campaign laws, conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service and giving false testimony to the FBI, made him the latest U.S. governor to run into legal trouble.

Others include New York’s Gov. Eliot Spitzer, forced to resign after he was accused of soliciting prostitutes, and Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, convicted for corruption in 2006 in what his allies allege was a politically motivated prosecution.

Acevedo’s indictment could create some awkward moments for Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama if they campaign as expected on the island ahead of its June 1 Democratic primary.

The governor is one of the island’s seven superdelegates and has endorsed Obama, but Amy Brundage, a spokesman for the Illinois senator, said Acevedo has no formal campaign role.

In recent months, Acevedo had accused the Justice Department of targeting him, in part for his criticism of a 2005 FBI raid in Puerto Rico during which a fugitive independence militant was killed.

Acting U.S. Attorney Rosa Emilia Rodriguez, who said authorities agreed to let Acevedo surrender “in deference to his position,” dismissed his allegation that the charges are politically motivated.

“Nobody is above the law. We all lose when electoral processes are compromised,” Rodriguez said. “For our part, we are not politicians, we do not make political decisions.”

Luis Fraticelli, special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Juan office, also rejected the claim of political bias. He said the agency opened the formal investigation three months before the shootout in which Filiberto Ojeda Rios was killed at a farmhouse in western Puerto Rico.

Acevedo, 46, a Harvard-educated attorney and career politician, served in Washington as the island’s nonvoting delegate to Congress in 2000-04, then ran a successful campaign for governor.

The governor’s Popular Democratic Party supports maintaining Puerto Rico’s semiautonomous relationship to the United States. His chief opponent wants the island to become the 51st state.