World Headlines
Wednesday January 12 4:07 PM ET
AIDS Trial Opens in Puerto Rico
By VILMA PEREZ Associated Press Writer
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Board members of a Puerto Rican AIDS program used U.S. funds to pay for a bribery scheme and a household maid, a key witness testified Wednesday in a federal trial.
During his testimony, former San Juan AIDS Institute controller Angel Corcino Mauras said board member Luis Dubon was part of a scheme to pay San Juan's former mayor and its health director $5,000 each monthly in exchange for unspecified contracts. Another board member, Dr. Jorge Garib, gave his maid $8,000 through the institute's payroll, Corcino said.
The men are accused of participating in an embezzlement scheme that has rocked this U.S. territory.
Last year, institute director Yamil Kouri and two other officials were convicted of stealing $2.2 million in federal AIDS money. Prosecutors say they used the money to shower politicians with campaign donations. Kouri was convicted in June and sentenced to 14 years in prison.
The accusations drew a parade of denials from political leaders, among them Gov. Pedro Rossello and former San Juan Mayor Hector Luis Acevedo.
Dubon and Garib also have denied any wrongdoing. Both are charged with conspiracy to embezzle federal funds, and Garib faces a perjury charge stemming from the earlier trial.
Corcino was one of 12 people indicted in the scheme, but he pleaded guilty and was a key witness in the earlier trial.
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Monday January 10 9:01 PM ET
Trial Opens on Diverted AIDS Funds
SAN JUAN (AP) - Jury selection began Monday for two more officials of a defunct AIDS foundation accused of diverting $2.2 million in federal funds for AIDS patients to political campaigns.
Luis Dubon Otero and Dr. Jorge Garib are charged with conspiring to embezzle federal funds. The money disappeared in the late 1980s and early 1990s from the San Juan AIDS Institute, where Garib was medical director and Dubon Otero was a director.
Attorneys began questioning prospective jurors Monday morning and continued well into the evening, focusing on how much they knew about three San Juan AIDS Institute managers who were convicted in June of funneling federal funds meant for patients into fake companies. The selection process was to continue Tuesday.
Former director Yamil Kouri was sentenced to 14 years in prison and ordered to pay back $1.3 million. Manager Jeannette Sotomayor was sentenced to three years and 10 months in prison and property manager Armando Borel received a one-year sentence.
Gov. Pedro Rossello was expected to testify in the latest trial, as he did in the trial against the three managers last year. Rossello had taken the stand to deny charges that Kouri donated $250,000 to his 1992 gubernatorial campaign.
More than a dozen other people have been indicted in the case.
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Sunday January 9 7:16 PM ET
Jury Selection for AIDS Funds Trial
By VILMA PEREZ Associated Press Writer
SAN JUAN (AP) - Jury selection begins Monday in the trial of two men accused of participating in a conspiracy to divert $2.2 million in funds for AIDS patients to political campaigns in Puerto Rico. Gov. Pedro Rosello is expected to testify in the trial of Luis Dubon Otero, a lawyer, and Jorge Garib, a doctor, who face charges of conspiracy to embezzle federal funds. Garib also is charged with perjury.
The trial is the second proceeding in a scandal that has rocked this U.S. territory's government.
Rossello took the stand last year to deny charges that he received $250,000 for his 1992 gubernatorial campaign from the director of the now-defunct San Juan AIDS Institute, Yamil Kouri. Rossello said he did not know where the money came from.
Kouri was sentenced to 14 years in jail in November for his part in the scheme and ordered to pay back $1.3 million. Two other institute managers got lesser prison sentences.
Garib was medical director of the institute, from which the money disappeared in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and Dubon Otero was one of the directors.
More than a dozen other people indicted - including prominent doctors, lawyers, accountants and community leaders - have yet to go to trial. Most have already pleaded guilty to various charges.
Among witnesses expected to testify in the federal trial are the former president of the House of Representatives, Zaida ``Cucusa'' Hernandez, Rep. Leo Diaz Urbina and the former House majority whip, Jose Granados Navedo.
During last year's two-month trial, Granados said he took a cardboard box stuffed with $100,000 for his 1988 San Juan mayoral campaign from Garib, though Puerto Rican law limits personal donations to mayoral campaigns to $1,000.
Granados resigned over the scandal but has not been charged with any crime.
The trial also is expected to clarify the part played by House president Edison Misla Aldarondo, whom Kouri identified as his chief contact to try to halt a House investigation into the institute between 1994 and 1996.
That investigation did not lead to any charges but served as a base for the federal investigation that preceded the current trials.
The charges of misusing federal funds have been especially embarrassing to the government because Puerto Ricans do not pay federal taxes while receiving $11 billion annually in federal aid.