Lavatón

The so-called Lavatón, was an alleged scheme designed by members of Puerto Rico's Popular Democratic Party (Partido Popular Democrático in Spanish), in order to spend more money than what the Puerto Rico Electoral Law of 1977 permitted.

According to published reports (El Nuevo Día [http://www.endi.com] and El Vocero [http://www.vocero.com] ), the scheme was created by then Popular Democratic Party Secretary-General, Ferdinand Mercado and fund-raiser Eduardo Rivero.

The scheme consisted of channelling excess money from the 2000 gubernatorial campaign of San Juan Mayor, Sila Calderón, into the Political Action Committees (PAC), of various Popular Democratic candidates, including Senate candidates Roberto Prats, Roberto Vigoreaux, Maribel Rodríguez, José Luis Dalmau, Juan Cancel Alegría, and Cirilo Tirado, and Representative candidates Ferdinand Pérez and Alida Arizmendi. This candidates would then use that money to finance television ads in favor of Calderón. This way, the Puerto Rico State Election Commission records, which every candidate and Party has to file, would not reflect that Calderón's campaign was spending more money than the law allowed.

Had it not been for the criminal charges that were brought against Rodríguez in 2002 for misuse of public funds, the scheme would have never been discovered. Rodríguez was charged of using public money to stay in a private hotel in New York during the Puerto Rican Day Parade. It was during the testimony of Rodríguez's son before the Senate Ethics Committee's own investigation that the Lavatón was exposed. He claimed that he had been present when Popular Democratic Party officials handed out thousands of dollars in boxes to the different candidates to pay for the ads. Of all the legislators involved, only Arizmendi and Vigoreaux admitted to participate in the scheme, although they claim it was inadvertively. Arizmendi later had to step down from office, when facing other criminal charges.

The investigation is expanded

As soon as more information about the Lavatón was filtered to the Press, other government entities like the Comptroller's Office began investigation allegations that Calderón and her aides had diverted Federal funds from the San Juan Health Department to the advertisement agencies in charge of her campaign.

The State Electoral Commission conducted its own investigation and referred all the Popular Democratic legislators who participated in the scheme to the Puerto Rico Justice Department.

The Justice Department did not file criminal charges against any of the legislators involved, claiming that the statute of limitiations of the Electoral Law prevented any further action. However, except for Dalmau, Tirado, and Pérez, all the other legislators involved lost their bid for re-election in the 2004 General Elections.

The House Government Affairs Committee is currently investigating the matter, as well as the Justice Department's actions (or lack of) relating to the case.

----1 El Nuevo Día and El Vocero