Julia Keleher sentenced to six months in prison

On December 17, 2021, federal judge Pedro A. Delgado Hernández sentenced former Education secretary Julia Keleher to six months in prison, one year of supervised release with home confinement, a $21,000 fine and community service, in the U.S. District Court in Puerto Rico. This is a sentence after a guilty plea — not a mere pending indictment.

Before sentencing, Keleher asked the people of Puerto Rico for forgiveness for the pain her acts as secretary may have caused and said Puerto Rican children deserve a better education system. The judge accepted the agreement between federal prosecutors and Keleher: guilt on two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit honest-services fraud. That pact — announced in June and accepted by the judge in October — set the six months, the year of home confinement and the $21,000 fine, the stipulated value of benefits for ceding school lands in exchange for an apartment in Ciudadela, Santurce.

Keleher was arrested by the FBI on July 10, 2019. She originally faced nine counts in two indictments, with fraud allegations reaching $13 million and a potential ceiling of up to 20 years; the agreement eliminated most of those counts. According to the federal indictment, she ceded lands of the Padre Rufo school in Santurce for a passive park in exchange for benefits in the lease and purchase of an apartment in Ciudadela.

Primera Hora summarizes that in June 2018 a deal was struck to acquire a two-bedroom apartment valued at $297,500; rent through August 2018 was $1 and was to rise to $1,500, but did not; she bought on December 4, 2018. A $12,000 “bonus” for the purchase was alleged; it was not established whether she received it in cash or it was subtracted from the price.

Officials from the federal Department of Education and her attorney María Domínguez took part in the Zoom hearing; Domínguez asked to serve the sentence at Alderson (West Virginia) or, as a second option, FCI Danbury (Connecticut). A final sentence under this agreement does not turn the rest of the original allegations into proven facts beyond what was admitted.