Arlington Man Pleads Guilty To Scheme With Puerto Rican Super PAC

ARLINGTON, VA — An Arlington man pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court for scheming to lie to the Federal Election Commission about the true identifies of donors to a super PAC for which he served as president and treasurer.

Joseph Fuentes-Fernandez, 62, and the super PAC, Salvemos a Puerto Rico, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante to one count of scheming to falsify and conceal material facts.

Fuentes is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 15. He faces a maximum of five years in prison.

In connection with its plea, the super PAC, Salvemos a Puerto Rico, has agreed to pay a fine of $150,000 and file amended Reports and Receipts and Disbursements with the FEC containing the true identity of all donors from 2020 to the present.

According to admissions made in connection with their pleas, Salvemos a Puerto Rico was organized to raise funds to support the 2020 election campaign of an unnamed public official, who was then a candidate for office in the executive branch of the government of Puerto Rico.

Soon after Salvemos a Puerto Rico was organized, Fuentes and others also formed two shell nonprofit social welfare organizations, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The two entities were registered within seven minutes of each other, listed the same mailing address, and shared some of the same officers, officials said.

Fuentes and others solicited hundreds of thousands of dollars of donations to the two shell nonprofit entities, which sent most of the funds to Salvemos a Puerto Rico. Fuentes and Salvemos a Puerto Rico then reported to the FEC that the nonprofit organizations were the donors of those funds, rather than reporting the true source of the funds, the Justice Department said.

“The purpose of routing these donor funds through the nonprofit organizations was exclusively to conceal the true identities of the donors to Salvemos a Puerto Rico,” the Justice Department said in a news release Thursday.

In October 2020, Fuentes sent this text message to a potential donor: “You can use a third party to not disclose the true donor.”

The FBI’s San Juan Field Office investigated the case.