AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A top former aide to U.S. Rep. Henry Cuéllar and a political and business consultant agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to help a Texas Democratic congressman launder more than $200,000 in bribes and assist prosecutors in a federal criminal investigationaccording to court documents unsealed this week.
Colin Strother, Cuellar’s former chief of staff and campaign manager, and Florencia Rendon, a business consultant and former chief of staff for former U.S. Rep. Solomon Ortiz, reached plea deals in March to ensure their cooperation in a Department investigation. of US Justice on Cuellar. and his wife.
The Cuellars were accused of accepting nearly $600,000 in bribes from an Azerbaijani-controlled energy company and a bank in Mexico in exchange for advancing the country’s and the bank’s U.S. interests.
Cuellar, 68, said he and his wife Imelda Cuellar, 67, are innocent.
In addition to bribery and conspiracy, the couple faces charges including wire fraud conspiracy, acting as agents for foreign principals and money laundering. If convicted, they could face up to decades in prison and the confiscation of any assets linked to the proceeds of the alleged scheme.
The plea agreements of Strother, 50, and Rendon, 73, are related to money laundering from Mexico. The agreements were opened on Wednesday. Both men agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering. Strother faces up to five years in prison and Rendon faces up to 20 years.
Investigators said Rendón and Cuellar were at a conference in Mexico City in 2015 when they hatched a plan to organize meetings with Mexican bank executives who needed help with money transfers from Mexican workers and to write fake contracts for consulting services. to be provided by Imelda Cuellar. . According to the indictment against the Cuellars, she “performed little or no legitimate work” in exchange for payment.
Rendon knew the contract was a “sham consulting contract” and that the $15,000-a-month payments were made to funnel money to Cuellar, the plea agreement said.
Rendon would send $11,000 a month to Strother, who in turn would transfer monthly payments of $10,000 to the Cuellars. From March 2016 to February 2018, Strother transferred nearly $215,000 to the Cuellars, according to the plea agreement.
At one point in 2018, Cuellar confronted Strother in a restaurant parking lot about missed payments to his wife, and Strother produced a spreadsheet on his phone to ensure the payments were up to date, the plea agreement said.
“As long as Strother and Rendon tell the truth, we won’t be concerned,” said Cuellar’s attorney, Chris Flood. “When the time is right, the judge in this case will alert everyone to the credibility of Strother and Rendon if they fail to do so.”
Attorneys for Strother and Rendon did not immediately return emails and phone messages seeking comment.
Cuellar and his wife surrendered to authorities last week and were briefly detained. They made an initial appearance before a federal judge in Houston and were released on $100,000 bail.
The FBI searched the parliamentarian’s house in the border city of Laredo in 2022, and Cuellar’s attorney at the time said Cuellar was not the target of that investigation.
“Everything I did in Congress was to serve the people of South Texas,” Cuellar said last week. “Before taking action, I proactively sought legal advice from the House Ethics Committee, which provided me with more than one written opinion, along with an additional opinion from a national law firm.”
Cuellar, one of the last anti-abortion Democrats in Congressnarrowly defeated progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros by less than 300 votes in a primary race in 2022.
