Puerto Rico Legislator & Two Capitol Employees Indicted Theft & Bribery - Nelson Del Valle Colon, Nickolle Santos-Estrada (Santos) & her m

I wonder how Hurricane Maria was involved.


[link to www.justice.gov (secure)]

On Wednesday, a federal grand jury in the District of Puerto Rico returned an eight-count indictment against legislator Nelson Del Valle Colon (Del Valle Colon), a member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives, as well as two of his employees, Nickolle Santos-Estrada (Santos) and her mother Mildred Estrada-Rojas (Estrada), for their alleged participation in a multi-year theft, bribery, and kickback conspiracy.

The indictment charges Del Valle Colon, Santos, and Estrada with conspiracy as well as theft, bribery, and kickbacks concerning programs receiving federal funds. Del Valle Colon is facing two additional counts of honest services wire fraud, and one count of obstruction of justice for destroying data on his cell phone.

According to the allegations in the indictment, in early 2017, Del Valle Colon fraudulently inflated the salaries of Santos, Estrada, and another individual for no legitimate reason, and corruptly agreed that out of their inflated paychecks, the employees would keep a portion for themselves and kick back the other portion, generally between approximately $500 and $2,000, to Del Valle Colon.