Henry Cuellar, Texas, and his wife indicted for corruption

Mr. Cuellar and his wife are accused of accepting bribes from a Mexico City bank and an Azerbaijan-owned oil and gas company. He maintained they were innocent.

Representative Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat in a crucial district, and his wife were accused of participating in a $600,000 bribery scheme involving Azerbaijan over the course of a year. and a Mexican bank, according to a federal indictment unsealed Friday in Houston.

The charges against Mr. Cuellar, 68, and his wife Imelda, 67 , center on allegations of corruption and money laundering in connection with their efforts on behalf of an oil and gas company owned by Azerbaijani leaders as well as an unnamed bank based in Mexico City, according to the 54-page complaint.

Mr. Cuellar, a Laredo native first elected in 2004, is also accused of acting as an agent of a foreign entity while in charge of the U.S. government — giving a speech in support of Azerbaijan in Congress and inserting provisions into relief bills to benefit those who paid bribes to his family.

The government has claimed that Mr. Cuellar, who was once Texas' secretary of state, was paid to support legislation intended to thwart regulation of the payday lending industry, which has been accused of predatory lending practices against the poor. He also tried to weaken money laundering laws that affected Mexico's banking sector, according to prosecutors.

Mr. Cuellar “agreed to influence legislative activity and advise and lobby senior U.S. executive branch officials regarding measures beneficial to the bank,” they said. These measures, taken literally, appeared to be legitimate political activities, even if they favored foreign companies. But the indictment alleged ulterior motives, and prosecutors compiled charts of secret payments that paint the actions as an illegal and mercenary scheme.

We have having difficulty retrieving the content of the article.

We are having difficulty retrieving the content of the article.

We are having difficulty retrieving the content of the article.

We are having difficulty retrieving the content of the article.

We are having difficulty retrieving the content of the article. p>

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode, please exit and sign in to your Times account, or subscribe to the entire Times.

Thank you...