Julia Keleher and co-defendants are filing for dismissal on corruption charges

Former Secretary of Education Julia Keleher and several co-defendants in the corruption case filed a petition in federal court to dismiss the charges against them.

The resignation was filed in separate motions by Keleher, former La Fortaleza advisor Alberto Velázquez Piñol, former BDO Puerto Rico president Fernando Scherrer and owner of the Intelligent Gran Solutions (IGS) company, Aníbal Jover Pagés.

Attorney María Domínguez, Keleher’s attorney, stated that the amended charge yields seven different conspiracies.

Of that total, the lawyer indicated that Keleher is only charged in the first three schemes. Regarding these three plans, “Ms. Keleher has not committed any of the alleged violations,” said Domínguez.

“Charges 1-11 and 12-15, 16-23, in fact, fail to establish an offense,” he added, stating that “they do not claim that a victim has been robbed or that an attempt has been made to take money or tangible property. ” .

He noted that “instead, the vast majority of allegations are about a flawed theory of fair service fraud disguised as money or property fraud.”

“As was the case with the original indictment in this case, the amended statement’s attempt to remedy these flawed allegations of honest services fraud as traditional money and property fraud fails, under the law,” he said.

Regarding the charges against Keleher, two other co-defendants – sisters Mayra and Glenda Ponce Mendoza – pleaded guilty in May last year.

For his part, Scherrer’s motion indicates in his motion that his role in the impeachment statement “can be summed up in one sentence: it is alleged that he was chairman of the firm BDO, while it is alleged that the (legal) violation of government contracts on behalf of BDO as its representative, assisted in hiring and recruiting a contractor (Alberto Velázquez Piñol) and exchanged two emails with that contractor that did not reflect any illegal intent or conduct ”.

He states that “that’s it, there is not a single statement to suggest that he personally did something illegal, agreed to do something illegal, or personally knew about anything wrong by others.”

“He is only charged with ordinary, legal, everyday acts, which he had no reason to believe were illegal,” he continued.

Meanwhile, he points out among Velázquez Piñol’s proposals that the documents of the Public Prosecution Service show that he had a professional relationship with BDO that began before the merger with Parissi, in which he received commissions from awarded contracts and that he also consulted with the Ministry of Education and Health Services Administration (ASES).

“There is nothing illegal in there and the prosecution has not mentioned any applicable law in that regard in the amended impeachment statement,” he said.

In turn, Jover filed three motions requesting the dismissal of several charges weighing against him. “From the sheet of the document, ASES received the services for which it negotiated and paid for,” said Jover’s motion.

The alleged misrepresentation of the ‘relationship’ between IGS and the individuals who provided the services did not alter the negotiation itself when the contracts were signed, and did not mislead ASES into contacting IGS, nor did it compromise the quality of the services provided, ” he added.

In her case, the former director of ASES Ángela Ávila joined several motions by the co-defendants and filed an individual motion, asking for the case to be dealt with separately, in order to “prevent it from being tainted by association with prejudice and risk of debt”.