Julio Herrera Velutini

WHAT THE RECORD SHOWS

The Justice Department’s clemency list prints his district as Puerto Rico, records no sentencing date and no sentence, and lists his pardon for conspiracy (two counts), federal program bribery (two counts) and honest services wire fraud (two counts), dated January 15, 2026, with an amended pardon dated January 20, 2026 for contribution by a foreign national; Bloomberg Law reported the grants were full and unconditional pardons. AP reported that from early 2019 the international bank he owned was being scrutinized by Puerto Rico’s Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions over transactions authorities believed were suspicious and unreported by the bank, that he and Mark Rossini, a former FBI agent who provided consulting services to him, allegedly promised to support Vázquez’s 2020 campaign for governor in exchange for her dismissing the commissioner and appointing a new one of his choosing, and that after the commissioner was replaced they paid more than $300,000 to political consultants supporting her campaign. CBS News reported that the Justice Department reduced the charges as trial approached and that in August 2025 he pleaded guilty, with Vázquez and Rossini, to a lesser misdemeanor violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act before U.S. District Judge Silvia Carreño-Coll, who said the penalty for that offense was “a mere slap on the wrist” next to the sentencing exposure. Campaign Legal Center reports that his 25-year-old daughter, whose only previous donation was $20, gave $3.5 million to the MAGA Inc. super PAC, and FEC filings record $2.5 million on December 31, 2024 and $1 million on July 22, 2025 from a donor filed as Isabela Herrera; the Campaign Legal Center complaint arguing she was not the true source of the money is an allegation, not a finding.