A Puerto Rican mayor got steamrolled by the FBI for accepting bribes from a paving company in exchange for contracts worth $9.9 million.
Felix Delgado-Montalvo, 40, resigned his position as mayor of Cataño, Puerto Rico on Tuesday after accepting a plea deal that included forfeiting $105,820 USD in illegal proceeds. Delgado-Montalvo pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to solicit and accept bribes. He faces a maximum of five years in prison when sentenced March 8, 2022, by Chief Judge Raúl M. Arias-Marxuach for the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico.
Asphalt and paving company owner Mario Villegas-Vargas, 42, was indicted for allegedly bribing the former mayor beginning in June 2017. In exchange for the alleged bribes and kickbacks, the mayor reportedly exerted his influence on other officials in the municipality of Cataño. The Gurabo-based paving company received more than $9.9 million in municipal contracts afterwards.
Villegas-Vargas is charged with conspiracy to pay bribes, bribery, and use of an interstate facility in aid of racketeering, according to a Department of Justice statement. The paving company owner faces a maximum of 20 years in prison if convicted on all counts of his indictment.
According to a report by the Conservative Brief, U.S. Attorney Stephen Muldrow said five luxury watches had also been forfeited by the former mayor.
“The scheme…was not very complicated,” Muldrow reportedly said, adding the former mayor met with the company owner in several places in Cataño to receive the watches and cash in a scheme that ran from 2017 to 2021. It took them a few tries, but the FBI finally got their man.
The Puerto Rican publication El Vocero reported this is not the first time that federal law enforcement has looked into alleged pay-for-play schemes involving the former Cataño mayor. A July 17, 2020 article detailed how the FBI investigated Delgado-Montalvo and his wife, Roxana Sifre.
“Similarly, this newspaper learned that interviews with contractors and municipal employees on contracts with waste collection companies continue,” reported Puerto Rican publication El Vocero.
“In August of last year [2019] this newspaper reported that the FBI was investigating possible irregularities in the granting of the contract between the Municipality of Cataño and the company Waste Collection, Corp., owned by Oscar Santamaría, who in turn has had consulting contracts in the Capitol since 2008,” the article related.
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