Puerto Rico’s federal and local lawmakers, as well as civil rights organizations, have called for investigations after ProPublica reported how a federal investigation into a drug-for-votes scheme in Puerto Rico’s prisons was called off after the 2024 election.
The territory’s representative in Congress, Pablo José Hernández Rivera, on Tuesday called on members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee to join him in calling for a congressional investigation into the matter.
“The report released today by ProPublica details facts that no elected official, whether in Puerto Rico or Washington, can ignore,” he said. said in a statement in Spanish.
The same day, deputy Héctor Ferrer Santiago, member of the Popular Democratic Party, presented a resolution in the territory’s House, ordering its Public Safety Committee to investigate, calling the allegations “serious!» and affirming that the Chamber has “an unavoidable duty to investigate”.
Their demands came the day ProPublica published its investigation detailing how prosecutors discovered a a drug-for-vote scheme run by a violent gang in Puerto Rican prisons and we were trying to find out if the current government. Jenniffer González-Colón or her campaign were involved. In the days after President Donald Trump’s 2024 election, as prosecutors prepared the indictment, supervisors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Puerto Rico asked them to exclude voting-related charges against inmates and prison staff, four sources with knowledge of the investigation told ProPublica. Then, once Trump took office, they were asked to drop the investigation into possible political ties altogether, the sources said.
González-Colón, a longtime Republican and member of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party, declined repeated requests for interviews from ProPublica. In a statement Tuesday, she denied any wrongdoing and said she “strongly opposed corruption” throughout her career and political campaigns.
“I categorically reject any attempt to link me to illegal behavior,” she wrote. González-Colón has not been charged with any crime.
She said local media Wednesday she does not believe an investigation into this matter is warranted. “There’s nothing here,” she said in Spanish. “And if they have research done over the last four years, let them do it, let them see it through. But I have absolutely nothing to do with the things that are highlighted there, much less my campaign.”
On Wednesday, leaders of the Puerto Rican Independence Party also called for an investigation. Senator María de Lourdes Santiago, vice-president of the party, said on social media that issues of partisan intervention in carceral spaces should not be ignored given their “serious implications.”
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Thomas Rivera Schatz, president of the Puerto Rico Senate and a member of González-Colón’s party, initially said local media that Puerto Rico government officials should fully investigate. But to a press conference Thursdayhe walked back that claim, saying of the ProPublica report: “I don’t give it any credibility. … It seems to be following a specific editorial line — one directed against the Republican Party and against Trump.”
A charge filed in December 2024, when Joe Biden was still president, charged 34 members of a gang, known as Group 31 or Los Tiburones, and associates with crimes including drug distribution resulting in at least four overdose deaths, money laundering and possession of a firearm. Prosecutors also alleged that the gang established ties with government officials “in an effort to reduce prison sentences” and that the gang enforced both prisoners’ political affiliation and “who to vote for in the primary and general elections” but did not include any charges related to the drug-for-votes scheme.
Sources close to the investigation said gang leaders forced inmates to vote for González-Colón or risk being brutally beaten and deprived of drug supplies. Many inmates are addicted to illicit drugs. Prosecutors said they had evidence that González-Colón spoke with one of the prison gang leaders on WhatsApp during the primary campaign and were looking for other potential connections when they were instructed not to look further, people familiar with the investigation told ProPublica.
González-Colón said in her statement that she engaged with all sectors of society during her campaign. “This involved meeting with families of incarcerated people concerned about rehabilitation and reintegration, because public policy must be inclusive and tailored to each community,” she said. She did not respond to the allegation that she spoke directly with a gang leader.
W. Stephen Muldrow, the U.S. attorney for the District of Puerto Rico, who was appointed by Trump in 2019 and has served since, told ProPublica that his office does not comment on open cases. Although a few defendants in the drug and money laundering cases have reached plea deals, most of the cases are still pending.
“Given the ongoing nature of the case and the importance of maintaining the integrity of active cases, it would not be appropriate for us to comment further in a press context,” Lymarie Llovet-Ayala, a spokesperson for the office, said in an email Wednesday. Previously, she said that indicting corrupt public officials “has always been and remains a top priority” of the office.
As Puerto Rico’s resident commissioner in Congress — a role similar to that of a U.S. representative — Hernández Rivera has the authority to introduce and co-sponsor legislation and vote in committee, but is prohibited from voting on the final passage of laws in the House.
Hernández Rivera, a Democrat and member of the Popular Democratic Party, said he already has the support of at least two members of the House Judiciary Committee who want to start the oversight process and are working on a draft letter requesting an investigation.
Puerto Rico’s political parties do not adhere to a straight division between Democrats and Republicans. Instead, they are largely focused on whether Puerto Rico should become a state, as are Republicans and Democrats within each of them.
Hernández Rivera said the fact that the New Progressive Party has control over inmates’ votes is suspect. “When it comes to prisons in particular, it’s eyebrow-raising from a statistical standpoint that 83 percent of inmates vote for this party’s candidate when no other place in Puerto Rico votes by those margins,” he said, citing a ProPublica tally of voter returns on the State Election Commission’s website. For comparison, González-Colón won 41% of the total votes in his victory in the five-way general election.
“The question here is rather whether the processes were followed and whether there was corruption in dropping the case,” Hernández Rivera said.
U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., a ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, told ProPublica that while he doesn’t yet know the details of the case, he would support an investigation. He said the allegations are not surprising given suspicions of voter fraud across the United States and given “today’s morality.”
“I hope our committee or another committee will investigate,” he said.
Annette Martínez-Orabona, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Puerto Rico, said dropping an investigation into a fraudulent prison voting system undermines the confidence of those who believe in democracy.
The ACLU is “advocating for full transparency about what happened in this investigation…what evidence was collected and what was done with that evidence,” Martínez Orabona said in a written statement.
The Power 4 Puerto Rico Coalition, a diaspora organization that advocates for more independence for the territory, said it wanted answers from González-Colón and the U.S. Department of Justice.
“Power 4 Puerto Rico is calling for congressional hearings to fully examine what happened, who knew and why the investigation related to the vote did not take place,” Erica González Martínez, the group’s director, wrote in a statement. “The Puerto Rican people deserve the truth.”