Wanda Vazquez Garced (Amended)

Vázquez Garced served as Governor of Puerto Rico from 2019 to 2021. She was originally indicted in 2022 on seven felony counts of bribery, conspiracy, and honest services fraud alongside Venezuelan-British banker Julio Herrera Velutini and former FBI agent Mark Rossini. Prosecutors alleged she accepted $300,000 in campaign contributions to a super PAC supporting her reelection — funded by Herrera Velutini — in exchange for her pledge to remove a senior Puerto Rico banking regulator who was scrutinizing Herrera Velutini's bank, Bancredito International Bank. The presiding judge, U.S. District Judge Silvia Carreño-Coll, publicly decried the government's "decision to shift gears at the eleventh hour" when prosecutors abandoned a case they described as strong in favor of a misdemeanor plea agreement. Under that plea, the felony charges were dropped and Vázquez Garced pleaded guilty to a single federal misdemeanor count: making a contribution by a foreign national, a violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act's prohibition on foreign nationals contributing to U.S. political campaigns. Trump issued an amended pardon on January 20, 2026, before any sentence was imposed, and the case — United States v. Julio Herrera Velutini, No. 3:25-cr-297 — was dismissed in its entirety on January 27, 2026.