"The president and treasurer of a Super PAC was sentenced today to 14 months in prison for scheming to lie to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) about the true identities of donors," the Justice Department said in a press release on Friday.
Fuentes-Fernandez, 62, admitted that the Super PAC raised funds to support the 2020 election campaign of a public official who was then a candidate for office in the executive branch of the government of Puerto Rico, the release said.
"Soon after Salvemos a Puerto Rico was organized, Fuentes and others also formed two shell § 501(c)(4) nonprofit social welfare organizations. These two § 501(c)(4) entities were registered within seven minutes of each other, listed the same mailing address, and shared some of the same officers," the release said.
Fuentes told prosecutors that he and others raised hundreds of thousands of dollars given to the two shell corporations and sent the majority of this money to Salvemos a Puerto Rico, the release said.
"Later, Fuentes and Salvemos a Puerto Rico then reported to the FEC that the nonprofit entities were the donors of those funds, rather than reporting the true source of the funds. The purpose of routing these donor funds through the nonprofit entities was exclusively to conceal the true identities of the donors to Salvemos a Puerto Rico," the release added.
One provision of the sentence is that Fuentes-Fernandez is also required to serve three years of probation while the Super PAC ordered to pay a $150,000 fine, according to the release.