Former Puerto Rico Education Secretary Is Sentenced To Prison

Former Puerto Rico Education Secretary Is Sentenced To Prison

Julia Keleher, who pled guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud, claimed she handled several major policy changes in a broken system "ineptly."

Julia Keleher, Puerto Rico's former education secretary, was detained two years ago as part of a wide-ranging corruption probe whose allegations helped stoke public discontent with the island's authorities and led to the acrimonious removal of a young and ambitious governor.

The allegations against Ms. Keleher and another high official sparked the first demonstrations against former Governor Ricardo A. Rosselló in the summer of 2019, leading him to come home from a family vacation in France for his last frantic weeks in office.

Ms. Keleher was sentenced to six months in jail, 12 months of home detention, and a $21,000 fine by a federal court in Puerto Rico on Friday. In June, she pled guilty to two felony charges including fraud schemes.

Ms. Keleher's sentence occurred amid a fresh wave of corruption charges in Puerto Rico, with three mayors arrested in three weeks. This month, a former mayor was accused of granting contracts worth over $10 million to an asphalt business that paid him with cash and fancy wristwatches after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery and accept kickbacks.