Puerto Rico: How a series of leaked text messages sparked a political crisis

Puerto Ricans take to the streets as leaked chats among top officials show dysfunction amid Hurricane María

Puerto Ricans take to the streets as leaked chats among top officials show dysfunction amid Hurricane María (AP)

Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló could not have imagined his constituents would one day read his texts from nearly two years ago calling a female politician a “whore,” or another the “daughter of a bitch”.

As Hurricane María tore apart his island, the governor — along with nine other men from his administration — shared profanity-laced, misogynistic, homophobic and otherwise incendiary messages to each other on the encrypted messaging app Telegram.

The officials did not hold back: they claimed San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz — posed to run against the governor in 2020 — was “off her meds”; they attacked members of a federal control board handling Puerto Rico’s finances; they even mocked singer Ricky Martin’s sexuality.

The chat was a safe space for the island’s male leaders to vent their personal frustrations and belittle apparent enemies. That is until last week, when 889 pages of the private messages were leaked, sinking the governor into the largest political crisis of his career.

Two of the governor’s top former officials involved in the texts have since resigned, just one day after Mr Rosselló’s former secretary of education and five other people were arrested on charges of steering federal money to unqualified, politically connected contractors. Starting Thursday, an anonymous person or people with access to the chats leaked dozens of pages of them to two local outlets. On Saturday, Puerto Rico’s Centre for Investigative Journalism published 889 pages.

In the chat group were Luis Rivera Marín, Rosselló’s secretary of state; Christian Sobrino, who held a series of important economic posts; Carlos Bermúdez, a one-time communications aide; Edwin Miranda, a communications consultant; Interior Secretary Ricardo Llerandi; Public Affairs Secretary Anthony Maceira and Elías Sánchez, one-time representative to the board overseeing Puerto Rico’s bankruptcy.

The group mentions then-New York City Council speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, who had criticised Democratic Party head Tom Perez for opposing Puerto Rican statehood, with Mr Rosselló calling her the Spanish word for “whore.”

Referring to Ms Cruz, the governor says, “she’s off her meds.”

“Either that, or she’s a tremendous HP,” he continues, using the Spanish initials for “son/daughter of a bitch.”

The texts showed more than misogyny and homophobia on the part of the governor and his men, however: the public was exposed to total dysfunction among the top echelons of the island’s government in the middle of a historic storm that left thousands dead.

Federal officials said Wednesday morning that former Education Secretary Julia Keleher; former Puerto Rico Health Insurance Administration head Ángela Ávila-Marrero; businessmen Fernando Scherrer-Caillet and Alberto Velázquez-Piñol, and education contractors Glenda E. Ponce-Mendoza and Mayra Ponce-Mendoza, who are sisters, were arrested by the FBI on 32 counts of fraud and related charges.

The alleged fraud involves $15.5m (£12.5m) in federal funding between 2017 and 2019. Nearly $13m (£10.5m) was spent by the Department of Education during Keleher’s time as secretary while $2.5m (£2m) was spent by the insurance administration when Ms Ávila was the director.

The chats and sprawling criminal indictments have led to massive protests across Puerto Rico, despite members of Mr Rosselló’s pro-statehood New Progressive Party declining to support the beginning of impeachment proceedings against the government.

“This week he’ll meet with mayors, with legislators, and we have to give him this time,” Carlos Méndez Núñez, the president of the commonwealth’s House of Representatives, said Sunday night. “Impeachment isn’t on the table yet. But we reserve the right to evaluate if that’s merited.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report