A multi-year scheme to defraud the Commonwealth through theft, bribery, and kickbacks led to the jailing of a Puerto Rican senator and her husband on Friday.
Marรญa Milagros Charbonier-Laureano, a member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives, received an eight-year prison sentence. The Justice Department reported that her husband, Orlando Montes-Rivera, received a sentence of four years and nine months.
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Charbonier-Laureano received one of the most severe punishments ever inflicted on a Puerto Rican public figure.
She also received two years of supervised release and 120 hours of community service.
Her attorney, Francisco Rebollo, announced on Friday that he would appeal her sentence.
“We do not agree with the sentence. However, we must acknowledge that this is a deliberate sentence. The court had a broad area of problems, and while I do not agree with it, I accept it,” Rebollo said in a statement.
In January, a jury convicted the pair on one count of conspiracy, two charges of theft, bribery, and kickbacks involving federally funded programs, six counts of honest services wire fraud, and two counts of money laundering.
Additionally, Charabonier-Laureano’s deletion of case-related material from her cellphone led to her conviction for obstructing justice.
According to court records, Charbonier-Laureano, her husband, and her assistant, Frances Acevedo-Ceballos, conspired to unlawfully inflate Acevedo-Ceballos’ pay from early 2017 to July 2020 in exchange for a share of it.
Throughout the plan, Charbonier-Laureano inflated her assistant’s biweekly compensation from $800 to over $2,900. Acevedo-Ceballos agreed to pay Charbonier-Laureano and Montes-Rivera about $1,500 per pay period.
Charbonier-Laureano began deleting nearly all call log entries, WhatsApp messages, and iMessages from her phone after learning of an inquiry into her office and the issuance of a warrant for her smartphone.
After admitting guilt to bribery involving federally funded programs, Acevedo-Ceballos received a sentence of three years and one month in jail in February.
