DOJ in Puerto Rico Halted Medication-for-Votes Investigation — ProPublica

To the narcotics brokers investigating drug smuggling in Puerto Rico prisons, it appeared at first like a typical scheme: associates of an inmate gang sneaking medication into the jail, gang members distributing them inside and financial institution information displaying the cash flowing.

Then the brokers found one thing uncommon.

Leaders of the jail gang generally known as Los Tiburones, or the Sharks, had been promoting medication to inmates not just for cash, however for his or her votes. Particularly, votes for now-Gov. Jenniffer González-Colón, a longtime Republican and supporter of President Donald Trump, investigators discovered.

To verify the inmates — a lot of whom had been addicted — complied, the gang’s leaders threatened violence and to withhold medication, the investigators realized. Corrections staff in on the plan appeared the opposite approach because the gang, formally generally known as Group 31, ran the enterprise.

What at first appeared like a routine drug case had became one thing larger. Puerto Rico, together with simply a few U.S. states, permits inmates to vote. Puerto Ricans dwelling within the territory can vote in all contests besides federal common elections. It’s a felony to willfully supply cash or items in change for help on the polls. A conviction carries fines of as a lot as $250,000 and imprisonment of as much as two years.

Investigators had gathered strong proof of election fraud implicating each inmates and workers, they usually had been working towards figuring out whether or not González-Colón or her marketing campaign was concerned, 4 individuals with data of the case informed ProPublica. They requested anonymity as a result of they don’t seem to be approved to talk publicly concerning the case.

However as federal prosecutors ready an indictment in opposition to the inmates and workers in November 2024 — simply days after Trump gained the election and González-Colón clinched the governorship — they obtained a shocking directive. Their bosses within the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the District of Puerto Rico instructed them to exclude the voting-related counts in opposition to the inmates and all prices in opposition to the jail workers, an investigation by ProPublica discovered.

In December, they filed an indictment charging 34 inmates and associates with crimes together with drug distribution leading to a minimum of 4 overdose deaths, cash laundering and possessing a firearm. And whereas prosecutors described the drugs-for-votes scheme within the court docket submitting, they didn’t embrace a single cost associated to it.

Quickly after Trump took workplace, the lead prosecutor, Jorge Matos, was informed by a supervisor to take the investigation no additional, in accordance with 4 individuals acquainted with the case.

“Earlier than the election, it was positively full steam forward,” stated one particular person acquainted with the case. “After the election, that every one modified.”

Matos, who left the Justice Division in June 2025, didn’t reply to cellphone calls or texts from ProPublica or makes an attempt to achieve him on social media.

For these engaged on the case, the choice to scrap the investigation was particularly puzzling given the brand new president’s agenda; Trump issued govt orders in early 2025 geared toward eradicating drug traffickers and declaring election integrity “elementary” to sustaining American democracy.

“We invested a lot effort to make a distinction,” stated one other particular person. “We’re pissed off, however there’s nothing we are able to do.”

Individuals near the case questioned if politics had performed a much bigger function than legislation and order. Trump congratulated González-Colón in a letter shared at her January 2025 inauguration saying, “I’m so happy with your resounding victory.” That very same month, she pushed to erect a statue of him on the Capitol constructing in San Juan alongside different presidents who’ve visited the island. “He deserves that,” she stated, in accordance with an official submit from the Federal Affairs Administration of Puerto Rico on X.

W. Stephen Muldrow, the U.S. lawyer for the District of Puerto Rico, was appointed by Trump in 2019 and has served constantly since then. His title seems on the indictment together with these of three assistant U.S. attorneys. Muldrow informed ProPublica his workplace doesn’t touch upon open investigations apart from in press releases or press conferences. Whereas a few the inmates have accepted plea offers, many of the drug and money-laundering circumstances in opposition to the inmates and associates are nonetheless making their approach via the court docket system.

In a follow-up electronic mail, a spokesperson for the workplace famous the indictment was filed throughout the Biden administration and below the earlier governor of Puerto Rico.

Charging corrupt public officers “has at all times been and stays a high precedence” of the workplace, wrote spokesperson Lymarie Llovet-Ayala.

“When ample admissible proof exists to cost individuals concerned in public corruption, as required by the Justice Handbook, the Puerto Rico U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace will aggressively pursue such prices,” she wrote.

In court docket paperwork tied to a special case, in October 2025, a Justice of the Peace decide talked about “an unrelated white-collar investigation involving the Governor of Puerto Rico.” Muldrow’s workplace responded in a submitting, stating, “There isn’t any white-collar investigation (or every other investigation) of Puerto Rico Governor Jenniffer González-Colón.”

González-Colón has not been charged with a criminal offense. The governor declined ProPublica’s repeated requests for an interview and didn’t reply to written questions despatched to her communications crew.

Muldrow had a pleasant working relationship with former Lawyer Normal Pam Bondi when she was the state lawyer common in Florida and he was an assistant U.S. lawyer within the center district of that state, in accordance with individuals who know him.

A Division of Justice spokesperson stated in an electronic mail, “Neither Lawyer Normal Bondi nor Performing Lawyer Normal Blanche was concerned in any charging or investigative resolution on this Biden administration prosecution.”

The lawyer common’s workplace famous in an announcement that the indictment talked about allegations of voting coercion, and stated: “This workplace didn’t restrict the underlying investigation in any approach.”

In Might 2025, in a transfer that federal prosecutors and political observers alike stated was extremely uncommon, the Workplace of the Director of Nationwide Intelligence seized the voting machines from Puerto Rico over considerations about “vulnerabilities,” in accordance with testimony in March by Director Tulsi Gabbard to Congress.

A spokesperson from the workplace informed ProPublica the seizure was on the request of the U.S. lawyer’s workplace in Puerto Rico and was “not about any election particularly.” The purpose was to “assess threat to this vital infrastructure, given related infrastructure is used all through the USA,” the spokesperson stated in an electronic mail.

Muldrow didn’t reply questions from ProPublica concerning the matter.

Lydia Lizarribar, an lawyer for Juan Carlos Ortiz-Vazquez, a Group 31 member who prosecutors named as one of many leaders of the drug operation, declined to touch upon the case.

A Occasion “Stronghold”

The Puerto Rican jail system has a protracted and well-documented historical past of overcrowding, insufficient medical care and different human rights violations so egregious that within the late Seventies they prompted federal oversight that continued for many years.

The grim situations spurred inmates to kind advocacy teams like Group 31, which was formally created as a nonprofit to foyer corrections officers and lawmakers to enhance inmates’ high quality of life. Over time, federal prosecutors say, a number of of those teams working within the prisons developed into violent legal organizations equivalent to Los Tiburones and Ñetas, with memberships within the 1000’s.

The poor situations had been additionally the backdrop for a push in 1980 by the New Progressive Occasion governor on the time, Carlos Romero Barceló, to codify voting rights for prisoners.

Inmates have been aligned with the celebration ever since, political analysts stated. Political events in Puerto Rico differ dramatically from these on the mainland. They don’t adhere to a straight divide amongst Democrats and Republicans. As a substitute, the 2 important events heart a lot of their give attention to whether or not Puerto Rico ought to grow to be a state and so have Republicans and Democrats inside every.

It’s not remarkable for politicians of all events to court docket the inmate vote, however the New Progressive Occasion has made it a “stronghold,” stated Fernando Tormos-Aponte, a political scientist with experience on Puerto Rico and an assistant professor of sociology on the College of Pittsburgh.

“It’s been an enormous benefit for them notably as elections in Puerto Rico have been determined by small margins,” Tormos-Aponte stated of the New Progressive Occasion. Within the 2024 common election for governor, the celebration gained 83% of the inmate vote, in accordance with a ProPublica tally of voter returns on the State Elections Fee’s web site.

Inmate votes had been particularly key within the 2024 gubernatorial main as González-Colón, a longtime New Progressive Occasion member, was difficult the incumbent governor of the identical celebration.

She gained the first by fewer than 30,000 votes, in accordance with the State Elections Fee. Native information stories stated that an estimated 5,000 prisoners voted territorywide.

In her first months in workplace, González-Colón signed a legislation permitting individuals with legal information to acquire skilled licenses in Puerto Rico.

In July, she signed off on a legislation increasing inmates’ capacity to carry jobs within the personal sector, calling it “a part of a imaginative and prescient of social justice,” including “we imagine within the second probability, within the worth of labor and within the capability for transformation of the human being.”

In March, González-Colón signed a legislation requiring the parole assessment board improve the tempo at which parole denials are reconsidered. She stated in a press launch the legislation is geared toward a “fairer, extra clear system centered on rehabilitation.”

Political analysts stated rumors have swirled over the many years about coercive ways getting used to mobilize the jail vote, elevating vital questions concerning the extent to which that help is available in change for favors from the ruling celebration.

This time was totally different, sources stated. That they had proof. Prosecutors had “locked up” the voting-for-drugs scheme among the many gang, inmates and workers, and had been deep into investigating a possible political connection when Muldrow’s workplace pulled the plug.

“These are the kind of questions you’ll assume an administration that has publicly declared this warfare on drug trafficking would examine additional,” Tormos-Aponte stated of the Trump administration. “You’d assume it will be a precedence.”

For the individuals acquainted with the jail election fraud investigation, it was clear politics had been at play within the resolution to desert prices prosecutors had been assured they may win. What wasn’t clear, they stated, was who was pulling the strings and the way. It was “such as you’re watching a puppet present however you’ll be able to’t see the strings,” one particular person stated.

“You realize what you’re seeing isn’t telling the entire story,” the particular person stated. “There was some type of invisible hand.”

Medication for Votes

Though they excluded drugs-for-votes prices, prosecutors didn’t scrub the Dec. 12, 2024, indictment of how they believed the operation labored.

Exterior associates of Los Tiburones, the indictment alleged, primarily used drones to drop medication on jail grounds. Then workers collaborating within the scheme helped within the “introduction and distribution” of the medication contained in the jail or acted as lookouts. The staff additionally allowed the gang members to implement their very own self-discipline system in opposition to those that didn’t do as they requested, together with when voting. Punishments included withholding meals from inmates or forcing them to sit down with their arms folded whereas they had been crushed and kicked. In 4 circumstances, the medication led to overdose deaths, the indictment says.

The indictment additionally alleged that Los Tiburones made connections with authorities officers “for the aim of lowering jail sentences,” and the gang mandated each the prisoners’ political affiliations and “who to vote for in main and common elections.”

A relative of one of many prisoners informed ProPublica that inmates needed to present their ballots to gang leaders after they voted to keep away from punishment.

Puerto Rico’s Civil Rights Fee, which for many years has despatched observers to polls throughout the territory, reported “critical difficulties” in getting access to a number of prisons throughout the 2024 common election. After being denied entry at a number of areas, the fee efficiently sought a court docket order, however a lot of the day had already handed by the point the observers had been allowed in.

“We strongly condemn the dearth of diligence and indifference proven by the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation in hindering the features of this Fee on the day of early voting in correctional establishments,” the company later wrote in a particular report on the 2024 elections.

The report stated observers witnessed prisoners voting in cramped quarters that didn’t enable for privateness and having handy their ballots to others to place within the field.

Ever Padilla-Ruiz, the fee’s govt director, informed ProPublica that inmates despatched written complaints to the workplace detailing their experiences of being pressured to vote within the main — some for González-Colón and others for her opponent, Pedro Pierluisi. They didn’t point out any gangs by title, Padilla-Ruiz stated.

He stated inmates reported that inmate group leaders had been “at all times sending messages” up till election day, including that they had been too afraid to say way more.

A number of individuals acquainted with the case stated investigators had proof that González-Colón had spoken to a Group 31 member, however that they had not decided whether or not she was concerned in vote shopping for.

One of many imprisoned gang leaders had bragged on Fb about his connection to González-Colón, posting an image of him speaking along with her on WhatsApp whereas the first marketing campaign for governor was underway, two sources stated.

She clearly benefited from the scheme, they stated. “There was little doubt about that,” one stated, noting that 1000’s of votes had been probably at stake.

The indictment notes that gang members had been offered preferential remedy equivalent to relaxed visitation insurance policies and the usage of Sony PlayStations, massive display TVs and cellphones, however investigators had not linked the privileges to González-Colón or her marketing campaign.

“Latinos Are Profitable”

González-Colón has been a longtime advocate for Puerto Rico statehood and has been engaged in Republican politics for greater than 20 years. She was elected chair of the Republican Occasion of Puerto Rico in 2015 and two years later turned resident commissioner, a task much like a U.S. consultant however with restricted voting energy in Congress.

She’s been an lively participant in Latinos for Trump, praising the president through the years as “sensible” and in 2019 saying on social media, “Latinos are profitable below his management.”

As she continues to foyer for Puerto Rico to grow to be the 51st state, González-Colón has additionally leaned in to her relationships with different members of Trump’s Cupboard, posting nicely needs on social media to Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of workers, and congratulating Markwayne Mullin, the Homeland Safety director Trump picked to interchange Kristi Noem, calling him “my good buddy.”

“I do know he’ll present sturdy management as he works with President Donald J. Trump to strengthen our nation’s safety,” she wrote in a March Fb submit.

Specialists on Puerto Rican finance and politics say the connection between González-Colón and the Trump administration is symbiotic although lopsided.

“I see it extra as a state of affairs of unrequited love,” stated Alvin Velazquez, an affiliate legislation professor at Indiana College’s Maurer Faculty of Legislation and an skilled on Puerto Rico’s chapter in 2017.

The territorial island, whose residents had been granted U.S. citizenship in 1917, receives much less federal funding than most states. Political leaders in Puerto Rico, González-Colón included, have perpetually lobbied for extra help.

Republicans in flip have capitalized on González-Colón’s rise as she helped bolster GOP help among the many Puerto Rican diaspora and different Latino voters on the mainland. Now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio endorsed González-Colón in her 2024 gubernatorial election.

Polls particularly isolating Puerto Rican voters present that Trump noticed a minimum of a 4 share level uptick in votes from Puerto Ricans dwelling in states in comparison with the 2020 election, garnering 45% of the group’s vote within the 2024 election, in accordance with the nonprofit analysis heart Instituto Cervantes at Harvard College.

And maybe most significantly, specialists say, Trump has counted on González-Colón to help his strategic geopolitical initiatives within the area, together with the controversial reopening of long-abandoned naval bases in Puerto Rico. González-Colón welcomed Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth to the island in September and thanked Trump on X for “recognizing the strategic worth Puerto Rico has to the nationwide safety of the USA and the battle in opposition to drug cartels in our hemisphere.”

That’s regardless of the sentiment amongst many Puerto Ricans who had been angered by Trump’s response to Hurricane Maria in 2017 and a comic at one in all Trump’s 2024 marketing campaign rallies who known as Puerto Rico a “floating island of rubbish.” And whereas Trump has stated that González-Colón was “fantastic to take care of and an awesome consultant of the individuals,” he later known as Puerto Rico “some of the corrupt locations on earth.”