The Panel on the Independent Special Prosecutor (PFEI) dismissed a criminal complaint against Jessika D. Padilla Rivera, former alternate president of Puerto Rico's State Elections Commission (CEE), over a bonus payment to exempt employees who worked the 2024 elections. Special independent prosecutors Leticia Pabón Ortiz and Ileana Agudo Calderón investigated the $177,586.49 bonus paid to 65 exempt employees, including Padilla Rivera herself, and interviewed 45 witnesses.
The resolution found the payment was an administrative, not criminal, irregularity: there was inadequate documentation of the criteria used to determine amounts, no uniform procedure was followed, and the matter was never submitted to the full Commission. However, investigators confirmed the employees actually performed the work for which they were compensated. Prosecutors concluded the evidence could not sustain criminal charges beyond a reasonable doubt for alleged violations of the Government Ethics Law and misappropriation of public funds.
They noted the failure to seek authorization from the Office of Management and Budget and the Fiscal Oversight Board was a serious irregularity that should not be minimized, though a budgetary or administrative irregularity alone does not establish all elements of a crime. The Panel clarified the decision not to prosecute criminally does not resolve possible ethical or administrative responsibilities.