Two Popular Democratic Party lawmakers and members of the panel investigating Rep. Luis Farinacci mingled with him the same day he called his estranged wife to allegedly threaten her.
The two, Rep. Luis Vega Ramos and Carlos ‘Charlie’ Hernández, failed to notify the Ethics Committee that they had had direct contact with the Ponce legislator just hours prior to the incident being investigated.
On July 14 at 9:46 p.m. Farinacci called his wife, Liza Yahaira Rivera, and allegedly threatened her.
The call forced Rivera’s parents to make the complaint to the Ethics Committee.
Rivera’s cellular calling record indicated that the call made by Farinacci was from Santurce, San Juan.
Farinacci told the police he had made the call from “between two sectors of Ponce.”
As members of the committee, both legislators should have told the body that they were with Farinacci hours before the call to his wife was made, but as of Wednesday, neither had notified the Committee.
According to several sources who attended the event at an Isla Verde hotel, Farinacci was seen talking to Hernández several times during the activity, attended by the entire PDP House delegation with the exception of Reps. Carmen “Yulín” Cruz and Brenda López de Arrarás.
The activity was promoted by Rep. Jaime Perelló.
López, like Vega and Hernández, is a member of the committee evaluating Farinacci’s actions.
There is also evidence that after Farinacci made the threatening telephone call to his wife, he made at least 14 other calls to friends and relatives, including a cousin, trying to enlist their help in dissuading Rivera from going to the police.
According to information obtained by the Daily Sun, at least two of the persons Farinacci called tried to convince Rivera not to go to the police with the complaint of domestic violence.
Rivera told the caller that she would go forward with the complaint because “he threatened my parents as well.”
It is strange enough that he called his wife the same day he showed up at the activity with another woman whom he introduced to at least one lawmaker as his “girlfriend.” But more information is forthcoming.
One PDP legislator who attended the event told the Daily Sun, on condition of anonymity, that there were several more “troubling actions.
“He was drinking for much of the activity. There was some strange behavior with the date he brought to the event,” said a PDP legislator.
According to three sources, Farinacci and the unnamed “girlfriend” had a falling out at the event.
“I hear that he (Farinacci) told another lawmaker that he had a problem with the woman he took to the activity,” said a PDP representative who wished to remain anonymous.
Sources said that Rep. Lydia Méndez also heard the same story at the event.
Farinacci also received a call at 3:30 that afternoon from the now ex-legislator Iván Rodríguez Traverzo, one of his closest friends.
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